Needed Air Compressor Recomendations

You say the compressors are very old and are obsolete. What brand are they? It has been my experience that these old recip's make air as good if not better then the new units you have suggested in your post. Now having said that there is other considerations to these units as well. Types of motors used on these older units (segmented) can help control power factors in your plant power systems. Repairs cost for valves are a draw back, but over all not bad.

Need a little more info to help you, such as. Plant electrical supply voltages. Actual CFMs needed. Foot print of area to be used for install. Also your location, I have contacts you may wish to discuss old recip's with also.

Thanks for the reply fixitorelse.

We have two types: 2 each 3650 SCFM IR 164 RPM Units (Circa 1938) and 3 each 2800 SCFM JOY 1800 RPM Units (Circa 1973).

New mechanical parts for the IR units are non-existent and must be hand made one-at-a-time which results in lengthy downtime, perceived unreliability, and high cost of repair. These are in my opinion "one of" if not "the best ever" air compressor produced in the world and I wish someone still manufactured this type of unit. Unfortunately they last too long and do not fit into our "planned obsolescence" world economy.

The JOY units are also obsolete and suffer the same drawbacks. In addition; they are oil-leaking, high maintenance units with poor reliability performance. We contract out our major maintenance and repairs to a reputable company and they nor we, can keep these units running for any reasonable length of time.

I would very much appreciate any sources for parts and/or service available on these units as well as any contacts for new units.

Thx.

My thought for the day:

"As the depth of alligators increase exponentially it is getting increasingly more difficult to maintain our initial focus on draining the swamp therefore accelerating our propensity to seek higher ground in an effort to endeavor to persevere in prolonging the functionality of the sphincter."

Does the IR units have the large segmented drive motors on them, if so you may wish to have your electrical engineering department look into the power factor issue in removing them. I have remove some of these units in the past and have to install capacitor banks to replace what I lost from motors. Just a suggestion.

If I were in need of compressors, 1st choice would be who services what, in my area and how are parts to be procured if there was an issue. As far as the manufactures go they are pretty much like asking what is the best car in a pack bar. Your going to get every ones personal opinion.

Morning,

Yes, the motors are the old, open frame, segmented type.

I have looked into the power factor correction loss and it will be minimal at this location.

Unless I have missed something, running a VFD that allows variable loading minimizes the loss of power factor issue.

Yep, brands are like cars in some ways.

That's why I posted to this forum hoping for real time performance DATA instead of relying on just personal opinions.

The wealth of knowledge in this forum is (in my opinion) unprecedented.

Thanks a bunch!

Jim

Agreed, on VFD units to some degree. I have seen harmonics go over the top when using these in place of other drive choices. Everything has some draw backs to them.

Kaeser

Looked at the purchase of new compressors 5 yrs ago. What I found is what Kaeser offered as standard on their VFD screw compressor were extras on the other brands. After adding then up the Kaeser was less costly to purchase. It is a little more costly to maintain. The sump in their compressor hold 2-3 times the oil. Synthetic oil isn't cheap for a compressor. But the added oil helps the compressor run cooler which in most cases means added life. Which is one reason the warranty runs for 5 years. If I remember correct was longer then the others. Also the 5 lobe screw where others have 4 means they are able to get a little more volume out of it for the same hp. Have had really no problems with it.Had to have the dryer recharged. Bought it as package with their dryer and filters. Have never had to drain a filter on any of my machines. Have three one inch drains off of the three mains that I have never got a drop of moisture out of. And gets pretty humid here in the summer.

It's been a good purchase so far, gets my recommendation.

http://www.kaeser.com/

Thanks for the information Ozzb.

We will be looking at this line of compressors.

Sounds like a very viable machine.

Jim

Manufacturers are the best source to guide you on this matter. Name of compressor OEM's you can very easily get on Google. Personally I do not recommend to go for recip again. Go for centrifugal or screw (with VFD in case of variable requirement), which you can easily get for these ranges. Other than IR, I know Atlas Copco & FS Elliot for this range.

pritam,

Thanks for the response.

I am reluctant to put any trust or dependency on Manufacturers due to their personal monetary gain driving/controlling the accuracy of information provided.

Every manufacturer of every product naturally promotes their products as being "the best", "the most efficient", "the cheapest to operate", and the list goes on.

No sales person or manufacturer representative is going to tell you anything negative about their products nor will they ever tell you a competitor's product is better.

To do so would result in their losing personal income as well as committing certain career suicide.

Only recorded application DATA and performance tracking over a reasonable extended amount of time will yield actual accurate equipment cost of operation.

I have no problems Googling for manufacturer names and I have most of the brand names.

What I really need is personnel recomendations and facts from professional people that have experience with a particular brand and type of compressor so that I can compare performance and cost of operation.

I was also hoping that in this day of tremendous IT information there might be a site location wherein one could access and view real DATA on real world applications of equiment.

I am receiving some good feedback and really appreciate you taking time to help me.

Thx,

Jim

Reciprocating piston type is not obsolete technology, it has a high compression ratio compared to other types.

Try to look at Atlas Copco models, or if you want a little more cheaper, have some brands --made from China manufacturer. You can google it in the worldwideweb.

Thanks Noudge!

We are looking at Atlas Copco.

I do not have much faith in any Chinese manufactured equipment as their quality control leaves a lot to be desired and there are so many counterfeit issues constantly popping up.

We have already suffered significant losses due to inferior Chinese products and equipment we purchased that have not performed up to standards and/or have suffered total failure especially when it comes to casting hardness, and metallurgy.

Case and point: We purchased high pressure 2500+ PSI NG servce rated shut off valves from a well known, reputable American-Based company. After installation we suffered a 100% failure of all installed valves. The American valve company service group came on site and changed all of the valves seats, and seals only to have 100% failure occurr again when we started back up. Through three separate system shutdowns and despite all of their efforts we could never get the valves to operate correctly and all leaked profusely. The root-cause of failure was assigned by the USA company rep as poor quality machining and substandard metallurgy. The USA company finally admitted that although the valves were advertised as being made in the USA, all of the valve components were actually manufactured in China and the valves were only assembled in the USA. Needless to say we replaced the valves with units from a different USA valve company and we have not had any issues since. This is not the only incident such as this but was/is one of the most dangerous cases we have thusfar encountered.

I am hoping that they get control over their issues soon and the issues go away but I cannot risk the reliability of our systems.

I have used both IR an Cameron. My best results are with the Cameron TA6040

Thanks for the response!

Jim

There are a number of excellent barnds, including Atlas Copco, but the important is the quality and quantity of air that your require to define the type of compressor to use.

Screw type and PD are good when you want clean dry air, and recip with oilers when you need only process air.

Thanks!

I have experience with Atlas Copco, Siemens and ManTurbo compressors. All are good and reliable. Siemens and ManTurbo will not respond for you, as they are in big size business. Cameron, I have seen at other user's site at couple of installations, they are satisfied with their performance.

greetings pritam,

Thank you for the info.

Jim

We are using IR's Turbo and KOBE's Turbo, integral geared centrifugal compressors. Both are good and reliable. IR's machine is for Instrument Air service at 7 bar and KOBE's machine is for process air at 34 bar discharge pressure respectively. Perforfamance wise both machines are reliable and satisfactory. In KOBE machine we faced problem with first stage inter cooler. Due to compact design, cooler was designed with narrow fins and those got chocked and thus cooler performance hindred the compressor performance. Now we have fixed another cooler in parallel to original cooler and problem has eliminated.

Interesting solution. I request Mukesh to share some more details like capacity, size, any space problem to accommodate additional cooler, increase in cooling water quantity, whether carried out by OEM or user etc.

Thanks a bunch for the good information Mukesh.

Have a great weekend!

Jim