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Often, for extra reliability, a main and spare compressor exist in a compressor room. The spare may be an old unit that has recently been replaced, turned off, but waiting to be fired up if the new compressor shuts down or is taken out of service for maintenance.  This spare compressor consumes no power if […]

By Ron Marshall A metal products manufacturer installed a desiccant dryer about 10 years ago to protect a special laser costing almost $1 million. The dryer worked perfectly, or so it seemed — it could be heard blowing off and switching sides as dual tower heatless desiccant dryers do. As part of a compressed air […]

With a little bit of imagination, we can relate a compressed air system to the circulatory system of a human body. We have the heart of the system, the air compressors, pumping out the life blood of the plant through the piping system, something we might relate to veins and arteries  A healthy system is […]

Air wands and blow guns are widely used in industrial plant for cleaning, product movement, drying and sometimes cooling.  These components often work very effectively for the said purpose but you should be forewarned that they do come with some very definite drawbacks: Safety – Compressed air can pick up and propel small objects, dust, […]

By Ron Marshall A power generation plant on a small island was having trouble. The plant’s instrument air was supposed to be dry — but there were many instances where water was pouring out of drains and collecting in low spots in piping. This left the engineers scratching their heads in puzzlement … the water […]

When sizing air compressors, the typical strategy is to err on the side of caution. Nobody wants to be the dummy who sized the compressor too small, causing low pressure production shut downs. So when compressors are installed, the usual act is to buy the next size bigger, without regard to the actual compressed air […]

Too often, air dryers are placed in hot environments where the ambient temperature and compressor discharge temperatures are high.  This needs to be considered when you are sizing a dryer, so the unit has enough capacity to remove the water from the air. The issue is the amount of moisture in the compressed air at […]

When installing compressed air storage to help with compressor control of lubricated screw compressors, the location of the tank makes a difference. Having significant receiver capacity of at least 5 gallons per cfm of trim compressor capacity serves to slow down compressor cycles and make the compressors run more efficiently when operating in load/unload more. If […]

By Ron Marshall A farm implement manufacturer purchased a variable speed drive compressor several years ago to reduce his compressed air production costs.  For many years the compressor performed as expected, taking the plant’s part load while one or two base units provided efficient full flow duty. A few months ago, there was a change […]