X ray unit to compressor

Hello Rino,

You have not mentioned the size (kw/cfm) of compressor..however..

two things could cause worry for you.

a) Noise (as compressors are noisy).

b) The start-stop may cause voltage drops and put electronics in the X-ray machine on stress.

i will prefer a separate room, for an item like compressor.

cheers.

All so the compressor will generate a lot of heat.

Hi V.I.Abraham

There isn't a safety issue regarding maintenance of the compressor. I work in Medical Imaging and spend most days in radiology practices, in CT rooms, and MRI rooms. The CT and X-ray equipment get vastly more servicing than a compressor ever could - to this end, there are numerous opportunities per year when a compressor could have routine maintenance or repair during a scanner down time.

Radiology practices usually have very reasonable hours - typically 8am to 5pm - even tha busiest of practices could make arrangements for maintenance of other equipment before 8am or after 5pm and I often make such arrangements with them.

The exceptions are hospital casualty CT and X-ray facilities - these can have patients at any hour, but in most cases, there will be other facilities in the same hospital that can be used if essential service or repair is being conducted in one CT or X-ray room.

There is no question of ever doing work in a CT or X-ray room while a patient is being X-rayed - no radiographer would allow this - but there are ample opportunities for service of any piece of equipment in these rooms - especially something like a compressor that would have quite long service intervals.

Regards

John

I agree with all previous posts, but I think one thing is missing: the effects of x ray on compressor. Of course x rays wouldn't affect metallic parts of compressor, but can age faster the organic compounds such as electric cable isolation, lubricating greases/oils, etc.

True XRays can effect oils and grease, they become hard. This effect does not happen overnight, it takes a long time. Normal PM of equipment should catch any issues here. XRay unit are composed of wires, insulation, gaskests, rubber seals, etc. They do age but like the oils and greases , not overnight, and again regular PM should catch any issues. I work with medical linear accelerators that produce hig levels of radiation and I do see this on occasion, albeit only after long a time (years).

Therefore the issue I think you really need to address is any inconvienience due to duty cycles, extra heat and noise. Explore putting this compressor on the roof or in an electrical distribution room or some other utility room. Piping is not that expensive.

I would also think that a compressor suddenly coming on while an X-ray was in progress could be very startling to a patient. Startled patients will result in blurred images.

Hi rino syahrir

Is the room for CT or more basic X-ray equipment? Is the compressor for room air conditioning, or for fluid cooling of a CT or X-ray equipment?

Normally, CT and X-ray rooms are cooled by ducted air conditioning for some of the reasons suggested by others - noise especially. CTs usually have dedicated power supplies, and are switchmode - pretty immune to power fluctuations which are rife in any hospital environment with the masses of electronic and electrical systems always present - and the dependence on back-up generators with quite dirty power on occasions. So I wouldn't be concerned about the compressor affecting the X-ray equipment.

Stray X-ray fields are low in modern radiology and imaging environments using modern equipment, and certain parts of the rooms are very low in X-ray radiation - the engineers installing CT or other X-ray equipment would be able to advise on low field locations for the compressor in the room if it simply can't be located outside the room.

I think the bottom line is that effects of the X-ray equipment on the compressor are not a concern, effects of the compressor on the X-ray equipment are not a concern, and the only real issues are to do with patient comfort - which is really important.

Regards

John

Is the compressor a part of the X-raay equipment setup?

What does the X-ray installation and operations manual suggest or recommend? What does the X-ray manufacturer's technical rep say?

Thank you, friends.

Maybe I need to do more explaining to you folks, even I already suggest the owner to rearrange the compressor to other remote place.

This project is a dental care unit with x ray (panoramic and mobile) facilities. The compressor I was talking about is the dental unit compressor (I don't have the capacity specs until now but it's small but-yes- its noisy and it have oil and all. The x ray (panoramic and mobile) are in the next room to dental unit. Since the compressor can't be in the same room as dental unit, first, they want to install in a cabinet in x ray room (that's the question pop).

Better to install the compressor outside the building to avoid the noise and for maintenance,but the pressure drop must be considered before installing it outside.Even if it can't be installed outside then there shall be a space provided for ventilation and cabling for the compressor and which should be accessible for maintenance.As you are saying that compressor is small in size then it can be accomadated inside the ceiling space with an opening for the return air and a drain pan shall be provided for the oil and grease leakages.

Well, as it's a dental x-ray unit must have low kV rating (about 70/80 kVp), so the X-ray spectrum mustn't be hard, and as the compressor is for dental tooling driving, should be relatively small one. Due to the intended use (discontinuous, with very short exposition times) and the low energy X-ray, I don't think you have problems with aging of organic materials such as oils, grease, cables, etc. Surely it become obsolete before radiation aged.

No problem with maintenance, because as X-ray set is off, no radiation is present and there must be time enough to do maintenance while dental unit isn't working.

Anyway, as other colleagues have said, it's preferable to install the compressor outside (on the roof/ceiling) if you don't have room enough.

If location have no direct access to ceiling/roof, I would recommend to acoustically/vibration isolating the compressor.

Best regards