Category Maintenance

Ray, a maintenance lead at a metal fabrication shop, replaced his separator element because oil was showing up in the air lines. The oil kept coming, so he replaced it again. By the third element, someone finally checked the small…

Dave, a maintenance supervisor at a packaging plant, replaced the screw compressor air/oil separator on his 75 HP machine three times in eight months. Each new element came out looking almost clean, and each time oil carryover returned within weeks.…

At 6:00 a.m. on a construction site outside São Paulo, Eduardo turned the key on his portable diesel compressor and heard nothing but a weak click. The concrete pour was scheduled in two hours, and the nearest service center was…

A drilling contractor in Western Australia pushed his 750 CFM diesel compressor three weeks past the 500-hour fuel filter change. The site was remote, the spare filter was sitting in a warehouse 900 kilometers away, and production pressure was high.…

Your fixed speed compressor has run 4,000 loaded hours this year. But it also accumulated 1,200 unloaded hours. Those unloaded hours spin the motor at full speed, heat the oil, and arc the contactor. They count toward maintenance intervals even…

Marcus ran a 10 HP rotary screw compressor in his Phoenix metal fabrication shop for 18 months without a single oil change. The manual said 4,000 hours. His compressor showed 3,200 hours. He figured he had time. He was wrong.…

A plastic extrusion plant in Indonesia skipped its quarterly oil change on a 75 HP screw compressor because production was too busy. Six weeks later, the airer seized during a peak order run. Downtime: 14 hours. Emergency air end replacement:…

The use of low-pressure air systems in different fields has been quite popular because it helps companies with cost savings and enhances productivity. It would be hard to argue that the importance of such systems in numerous processes is irrelevant,…

When it comes to severe winters and screw compressors, such as those that are fuelled with diesel, adequate preparation is a must, not only a recommendation. Equipment becomes vulnerable to cold spells, icy drafts, and snow cover, which may lead…

When drilling crews in a foreign mining country, Australia, needed compressed air quickly, they could not afford to cement footings and connect electrical cables. The other quick and easy solution was when a pre-fabricated skid-based air compressor was lowered using…