TV personality Mike Rowe built his name and career by putting good sense and cleanliness aside and immersing himself in some pretty gross and gag-inducing situations. He’s listed, during interviews about his former program, some of the worst jobs, the dirtiest of the dirty, as sewer inspector, snake wrangler, chicken sexer, horse inseminator and shark suit tester. All of these, on their best day, constitute a very bad day at the office.
Work environments can be dirty, nasty places, especially in manufacturing facilities. It’s not a knock on anyone’s cleaning habits or even maintenance schedules. Some processes just come with a lot of filth and muck. That’s why, just like all essential equipment, air compressors require a maintenance schedule to keep things running smoothly.
Just like real estate, the location of a machine matters a great deal. And a lot of the maintenance of a machine, particularly with something such as an air compressor that has an intake that draws in air, depends a great deal on environment. Wearing a shark suit doesn’t seem problematic if you’re on dry land; wearing (and testing) it in the presence of sharks is completely different. So, environment impacts performance.
The harder an air compressor must work to take in air, the more the output suffers because power that would otherwise go to compression is being sacrificed due largely to the extra effort needed just to get air into the machine. And this effort, over time, wears on the machine – imagine always having to run uphill in a dirty air environment, like smog, without a break that comes with running at grade or even downhill. It gets tiring. That’s why keeping the intake vent clean is a good first step to making sure your compressed air, and your infrastructure, are operating optimally and as efficiently as conditions allow.
Keeping an air intake clean and clear is particularly vital for variable speed drive machines, for which clean air is particularly essential for performance and durability. It isn’t uncommon to see good-intentioned maintenance technicians place a fan aimed at a VSD compressor’s internal components to help keep them cool. But too often, because these machines are so good in bad environments, a lot of the ambient dust and dirt in the air gets blown into the machine and covers the drive and decreasing its performance and shortening its lifespan. (Improving VSD performance in particularly dirty conditions is what inspired the technology behind the Atlas Copco Neos, which has internal components sealed and a heat sink that is cooled externally).
You’ve probably seen this stat before: estimates indicate that poorly designed and maintained compressed air systems account for up to $3.2 billion in wasted utility payments in the U.S. every year. One way to keep energy costs down, while extending the life of your machines, is to start at the beginning – keep that air intake clean.
We’ve seen people frame and position air conditioning filters over the louvers of the air intake on their compressors to keep air cleaner. Do you have an air intake tip you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.
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