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Duty Cycle on Compressors

I'm curios as to why some compressor owners say they let their compressors "rest". If the temperature is within range of safe and the compressor is in known good running condition why not let them run. What will shutting it down for 15-30 minutes gain? I'm wondering also if shutting it down from full load if that is the case in some instances and then restarting it isn't harder on the unit than a continuous run say for 45min to an hour. I've ran my AV for long periods but the temp is well within range and I purge it pretty frequently. Granted, mine is down at the time with a broken motor shaft originally and now waiting on piston seals but I don't think extended run times had anything to do with the failure. I kinda compare it to a vehicle engine that is design to run basically continuously. We have compressors and pumps at work that run 24/7 and we never shut them down to "rest".

Just wondering if anyone else has thought about this.

Jk
 
Compressor are not design to run continuously nor for 24 hours. Unless it's those expensive 4k+ compressors, then maybe. Most of our $1000 and under compressor will heat up really quick and even water cooled they still get very hot. People let it sit so it can cool down which will extend its life. Go ahead and push you compressor to as long as you want. It's your money. For some of us, we want our compressor to last as long as possible. So letting it cool down isnt gonna kill us. I usually run my compressor 30 mins at a time. I wouldnt run it pass 1 hour. 20 mins is enough to fill my 74cf tank from 3500 psi to 4500 psi. 
 
I use ice in the water and keep an eye on the temp but I top off my 106cu/ft bottle in under 40 mins continuous run. The ice keeps the temp well below recommended level. If you are going to shut it down and restart I would recommend opening the purge valve to restart the compressor then slowly close to re pressurize the compressor and shutting it down in reverse order.
 
IMO. The only valid reason to rest whilst filling is to avoid cooking the armature windings. I have to agree, there should be no mechanical advantage in shutting down and allowing to cool especially with water cooling. Running ice in the coolant will probably cause more harm than good. A cold motor will wear a lot faster than a hot one and you run the risk of pinching the piston. I just finished filling a 6.8-litre bottle from empty and the water coming out of the outlet hose was only lukewarm indicating that the cooling of the high-pressure cylinder is more than adequate. The temperature gauge probe that measures the 1st stage head only, on the YongHeng is not an accurate representation of the actual water-jacket or coolant temp. Having said that, the gauge didn't go any higher than 56 degrees anyway. I use a check valve at the output so I can shut down and leave the line and filter pressurised and restart with the bleed open so to avoid loading the system if I do shut down mid fill.
 
I believe the more critical issue is the maximum pressure the compressor is ask to achieve. I would suggest NOT topping off to 320 bar. It takes the compressor a much longer time to reach those last few bar and filling the tanks more often to a lower pressure will result in a much shorter run time and most certainly make your compressors life easier. 

Very much like any piece of equipment common sense says take it a little easy 
 
Thanks for the input guys. I believe bubblerboy is correct and I'm probably guilty of pushing mine a little hard at times. I've been told before that the work compressors have to do to get that extra pressure of 4500 is proportionally higher than a lower fill pressure so it is probably a really good idea to fill to a lower pressure especially for larger volume tanks where you could run into extended run times. When I top off my 75's usually 15-17min is all it takes to go all the way to 4500 and I'd consider this to be a low volume tank. When I top off my 300cuft it's closer to an hour and I have done it in a couple of sessions but as a precaution I'll probably commit to a lower fill pressure on it.

Jimmy
 
I'm not a machinist but my Y/H has lasted over two years with ice in the water and non detergent #30 motor oil. I have toped off a 106cu/ft cf bottle about 25 or 30 times. When the bottle can only fill my impact to 225bar I re top the large cf bottle to 300bar and im good for a while again. BTW I offered 200 bucks on ebay for my Y/H and they excepted with free delivery so I figure I got my moneys worth.
 
I'm not a machinist but my Y/H has lasted over two years with ice in the water and non detergent #30 motor oil. I have toped off a 106cu/ft cf bottle about 25 or 30 times. When the bottle can only fill my impact to 225bar I re top the large cf bottle to 300bar and im good for a while again. BTW I offered 200 bucks on ebay for my Y/H and they excepted with free delivery so I figure I got my moneys worth.

Similar here. Seems the YH can work well but also can fail fairly quickly. Mine has been good. But it also seems there have been Daystate compressor failures as well as AV and Hatsan. All relative-anything can fail. For my money, the YH has been a bargain and if it goes today it's been well worth it.
 
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My Daystate LC-110 manual advises that the duty cycle is 100 min run time followed by a 30 minute cool off period.

I typically top off one 88 ft3 and one 66 ft3 tank and depending on the tanks starting pressure, it takes compressor 45 - 55 minutes to fill to 4500 psi. Now that ambient temperature has dropped off (summer is finally finished after 6 months of hot weather, hooray!), my temp gun indicates second stage head gets to 190 F before compressor shuts down. After I shut the tank valve and disconnect, open bleed valve and run the compressor again, this time to purge any remaining water, temp falls rapidly to 160 or lower.

For my use, my duty cycle is more like half of what Daystate advises.
 
I am not going to comment on the Chinese toys since I can lose my insurance by getting involved in them. My comments below are about the Coltri or Bauer stock small compressors (not the Daystate which is Coltri made).

Duty cycle has to do with the compressor itself ... not the motor which has it's own duty rating. In order to take a continuous duty machine (can run 24 hours a day at max pressure) to intermittent duty, the manufacturers had to reduce crank and bearing size. This reduces size, weight and cost. Temperature plays a small part in the rating, but stress on the system is the key component. The small $2700 compressors can pump all day long one tank at a time to max pressure (4500 psi). As long as you are only filling one tank at a time, the maximum stress occurs only for a short time as the compressor gets up to 4500. However, if you hook up a bulk tank, you greatly extend the time that the compressor will be at the higher pressures and will slowly but surely be eating away at the crank shaft bearings and races as well as the piston pins. 

So, fill one tank at a time and you are golden. Fill a daisy chain of tanks or a bulk tanks or two and you will be calling me for repair parts sooner or later.

Ray Contreras - Owner CompressorStuff.com


 
Duty cycle has to do with the compressor itself ... Temperature plays a small part.... stress on the system is the key .... if you hook up a bulk tank, you greatly extend the time that the compressor will be at the higher pressures and will slowly but surely be eating away at the crank shaft bearings and races as well as the piston pins.

I can understand that there is a limit on the cumulative run time of the compressor under high pressure but I am afraid this is not what "duty cycle" referes to here.

In filling up a tank from empty to a desired pressure, the cummulative run time under high pressure is fixed but there are two choices in running the compressor - doing it in one go or inserting some break time in the process. Will the amount of wearing on the crank shaft and bearing the same in both cases ? I think that's the question being discussed here. 
 
This is an old thread but still a reasonable question left unanswered.

I have torn down and built up a few compressors and am currently writing a detailed shop manual for the Yong Heng compressor (compressors in general work about the same). In the process of doing so I have run temperature gauges on every major component and logged a lot of data.

With time the motor is subject to "heat soak" and continues heating internally, making it less efficient and causes it to generate more heat from the same workload. Of course in a simple system as the tank pressure rises the workload increases and also contributes to heat generation. The fan on the Yong Heng is insufficient to run the compressor continuously, so if left on eventually the enamel on the windings will break down from overheating and windings will start shorting together which decreases work output and increases current draw, making the motor less efficient and causing it to heat faster. The solution is to add a large external fan to cool the motor; when doing so the motor tops out at about 68°C.

In most setups oil cools the primary cylinder and piston. In the Yong Heng setup there isn't a good mechanism to cool the oil and it will continue to heat with time. Oil in the YH splashes against the housing which has a lot of surface area but little air flow and not much thermal conductivity. Adding an external fan to cool the housing will help, but the oil is still subject to overheating due to the housing's lack of thermal conductivity. When the motor reaches 68°C the oil will be about 58°C depending on the setup. One thing to note is the YH has a lot of first-stage blow-by which escapes out the cylinder housing vent; as such the compressor should be used in a well-ventilated area.

Using a 6-gallon bucket filled with ice and then adding water plus use of the aforementioned fans will allow the YH to run for about 1.5 hours continuous in a 18°C environment. The 0°C ice water cools the second-stage cylinder so less heat is transmitted to the first-stage cylinder, keeping the oil cooler. The first-stage cylinder has limited cooling if the pressure-shutoff relay is installed as it blocks the air flow path.

Some dive tank fill station compressors have three, four, five, or six stages, but they still operate somewhat the same in principle. The main differences compared to the YH are in additional complexity, efficiency, and maintainability, not to mention initial cost. The YH is extremely simple and cannot sustain commercial usage, but is well suited for the low-volume weekend shooter. Competition shooters probably want to either have their tanks filled at a dive shop or purchase a quality low-volume dive compressor and 6800 or 9000 PSI microbore lines. Even then bad crimps can lead to blowouts, so care must always be taken.
 
So what if you put a heat sink on the motor? That is probably the only part of my Benjamin (New Warrior) that doesn't have fins to catch the air blowing through.



For context, my little desktop DC powered micromill used to get so hot you couldn't touch it. I decided that was stupid and cut out about 20 layers of aluminum sheet and stacked them up with nuts and long screws. Clamped it to the motor, attached a small 12 volt fan, and now the motor is far more happy.