Before choosing your first compressor for your garage, workshop or manufacturing facility, you should familiarize yourself with the general knowledge of the types of compressors available on the market. The most popular are certainly piston compressors (with and without oil), screw compressors, vane compressors and scroll compressors. Now that we have a compressor, our needs are slowly increasing.
The device itself is not enough to meet our needs. If you want to use the device, you will need compressed air tools as well as various connections and accessories.
Thanks to the developed market in the country and around the world, you can easily expand the installation from scratch in any conditions. Before we decide to purchase accessories and the device itself, we need to answer a very, very important question: what do we want to use our compressed air for?
The answers can be diverse: from simple blowing, activating, activating pneumatic tools, painting, sandblasting, plastering to activating machines in the production cycle. By determining what we need, we can first determine our compressed air needs and determine its quality. Once we have this data, we can select the compressor, treatment system and accessories needed.
What type of pneumatic installation?
Now that we have the compressor, we want to distribute the compressed air. We can do this by wrapping and using calibrated shielded cables, using solid tubes, e.g. B. hot-welded tubes (Coprax) or more expensive aluminum tubes (Transair, Airnet). It all depends on our creativity and our financial capabilities.
And while at home or in the garage we can allow a certain freedom and flexibility in the construction of facilities, in the case of a workshop or a production facility, certain so-called simple solutions will be unacceptable.
And it's not about the fact that something doesn't work, because it will, but above all about the tightness and failure rate, which end up reducing our portfolio. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that air, although available in unlimited quantities, is the most expensive medium.
When choosing the elements necessary for distribution, we must also determine the air quality. Just a cable and a compressor are not enough, unless we only use them to blow or inflate tires, or perhaps in the pool or at a ball in the summer. However, I would also debate whether it is better, technologically speaking. use clean air without aggressive condensation. But I leave that to your free choice.
Filter compressed air
With a workshop and production line things get a little more complicated. This is due to the machines and devices themselves, which ultimately need to be operated with compressed air. We face the problem of filtering the compressed air and separating the condensate.
Network filters are elements of an entire technological chain, generally very complex. These are elements that, if selected correctly, do not restrict the flow and use the movement of the cyclone in its chamber to separate the compressed air from the water and oil particles into solid particles.
Filter types can be divided into primary filter types, which are most often attached to small compressors by some manufacturers, and those found in the simpler distribution systems of small workshops (more on this topic here). They allow simple tools to operate in a technically clean medium without being damaged. Its accuracy is 40 to 5 μm.
Fine filters are the second stage of filtration with much smaller grains and cartridge pores. Cartridge accuracy for these products can be between 3 and 0.3 µm, for example.
Final filter, filter that, in collaboration with the previous two, allows us to achieve a quality of up to 99% efficiency, allowing us to easily carry out work such as: B. painting. Provided, of course, that the product has been selected correctly (yield) and is installed as far away as possible from the compressed air source. The main point is that the medium has time to cool before it reaches the first filter cup.
Because as we know, hot air does not contain condensed moisture and filtering the solid components is not enough. The reliability of compressed air filtration is therefore crucial in the fight against moisture and problems caused by contaminants entering the system.
Contamination in the form of dirt, oil and water can and often leads to:
- Formation of deposits in pipes and corrosion in pressure vessels
- Damage to machines and production facilities
- Damage to pneumatic mechanisms and pneumatic tools
- faster desiccant replacement in adsorption dryers
- Product deterioration.
Therefore, it is worth having one or more filters to save money, time and peace of mind.
Pneumatic workshop hoses
Flexible, spiral-shaped, smooth or double-layer shielded cables with nylon braid are used to provide reliable power to machines and end devices.
We select the length and diameter of these hoses according to a specific application profile. For regular blowing, we can use diameters of e.g. B. use 6 mm to drive some tools, obviously respecting the pressure resistance criteria.
Popular cables in workshops are so-called tails or, as many users colloquially call them, spirals.
These cables are sophisticated and ready for “plug and play” operation. They can be divided into diameters and lengths, of which 3/4 of the specified total length of the section constitutes the so-called working length, and into the types of materials from which they are made.
The cheapest commercial polyamide will never be as durable as polyurethane! The handles must be forged and equipped with universal connectors that allow easy connection of any tool.
The most popular tools in every workshop are usually pump and blow guns or pneumatic screwdrivers for loosening screws. All types of screwdrivers, grinders and drills are available in the production rooms.
A wide range of offers on the market guarantees that every compressor user will find something for themselves, even a hobby set, but this one can also bring joy to many.
Compressor service – is it necessary?
A compressor in the workplace is a device that we must also think about when maintaining it.
Unfortunately, there is still a belief that no matter what happens, we will solve the problem immediately. Well, not necessarily.
Although we can replace the oil, air filter or V-belt (if present), in the event of a serious fault we often need a service or even your help and advice.
To protect the compressor's operation from a possible emergency stop, it should be sufficient to always have most of the emergency power supply elements available, such as so-called spare parts. This usually includes intake filters, oil filters, all separators, V-belts and definitely oil for refilling or complete replacement.
The low cost of this protection means avoiding losses due to downtime when you have to waste time looking for originals or replacements if the manufacturer allows it.
Finally, a small but very important observation. If you use a compressor, you must keep the device's documents in your files. This is extremely important in case of malfunction (warranty card), UDT inspection, etc. (technical documentation for the device, tank passport).
In the event of a lost document, reconstruction is often associated with considerable costs and complications, and such reconstruction is often impossible when purchasing from unauthorized dealers.
I would also like to add that a compressor, no matter how small or large it may be, should not be subjected to any changes, modifications or changes in its operating characteristics. This mainly concerns changes in configuration, increasing the maximum pressure.
This happens, for example, when tools become weaker. They are usually dirty, so, as I wrote above, it is worth investing in an oil filter itself.
