Atlas Copco screw air compressor oil, choices??

[Mainia]

We have a couple Atlas Copco oil injected rotary screw air compressors one is a 11 hp VSD and the other is a 30 hp VSD (variable speed).

http://www.atlascopco.us/usus/products/air-and-gas-compressors/1473343/1512704/


The Atlas Copco Roto-Extend synthetic oil is $499 for a 5 gallon pail. Sorry, that price is too high. I was looking at Mobil SHC 1025 ISO 46 and Royal Purple Synfilm-GT ISO 46. Opinions please and your reasoning. Open to other "name brand" synthetic oil. I am looking for 8,000 hour change interval oil. I will be changing it at 7,000 hours.

Not interested in no name custom brews that are all over internet from compressor companies.



http://www.mobilindustrial.com/ind/english/files/ss_shc_1020.pdf


http://www.royalpurpleindustrial.com/assets/SYNFILM-GT-PDS1.pdf


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[JTK]

I believe we use Dow U-CON (not sure of the # at the moment) in our trains of MYCOM oil flooded screw compressors. These are in hydrogen gas service though. 2 to 200psig. One 55g drum is like $700 IIRC.

I hear you on the cost of some of these oils. We've got some Lamson blowers in oxygen service, where the bearing cavities use an O2 safe oil that's hundreds of dollars a QUART.

 

[ISO55000]

Originally Posted By: Mainia
We have a couple Atlas Copco oil injected rotary screw air compressors one is a 11 hp VSD and the other is a 30 hp VSD (variable speed).

http://www.atlascopco.us/usus/products/air-and-gas-compressors/1473343/1512704/


The Atlas Copco Roto-Extend synthetic oil is $499 for a 5 gallon pail. Sorry, that price is too high. I was looking at Mobil SHC 1025 ISO 46 and Royal Purple Synfilm-GT ISO 46. Opinions please and your reasoning. Open to other "name brand" synthetic oil. I am looking for 8,000 hour change interval oil. I will be changing it at 7,000 hours.

Not interested in no name custom brews that are all over internet from compressor companies.



http://www.mobilindustrial.com/ind/english/files/ss_shc_1020.pdf


http://www.royalpurpleindustrial.com/assets/SYNFILM-GT-PDS1.pdf




Be glad to help you out, I have done compressors my entire career and am an OEM authorized agent for a few name brands.

I’m assuming this is a “new purchase”?

First thing you need to consider is: Will this affect the warranty? Most OEMs put a signature chemical in their “house oil” so they can specifically identify it in the case of a damage/warranty claim.

I would ask as part of my purchase agreement for them to give you 2 service packs (filters and Separator) and 1 full fluid change with a little extra for top offs).
(You will need that top off oil because when you do the separator/filter change you will lose some and a screw loses some just by virtue it’s a screw and the scavenger line in the separator never saves it all. This will all happen long before any change interval)

Barring a warranty issue, any rated ISO equal will function adequately but don’t make that decision based on an oil comparison but on the specific compressor requirements which will be in the IOM of your purchase packet.

I must maintain vendor neutrality and cannot make a specific recommendation or endorsement for any particular product but I will say that Mobil SHC 1020 is a proper lubricant and will perform adequately in your compressor provided there is not a warranty or process gas issue that would disqualify it.

Royal purple- be very careful, here’s why

Oil to be used in a rotary screw compressor is subjected to unique stresses that no other compressor and few other applications give- that’s why you often see the term “compressor rated” or “compressor duty”.( then what type because recips and vanes have unique characteristics too)

Read that RP brochure REAL CAREFULLY.

Take note that is specifically says CENTRIFUGAL compressors and catch all “stuff” like “etc.” It does NOT specifically say a ROTARY SCREW application like the other does.

(One of the many reasons I do not care for their marketing methods- at best they are too vague for my liking)

I STRONGLY suggest you do the following because I have seen many a client make an oil purchase based on price point and totally destroy a compressor.

Get the oil vendor(s) of your choice spec out your situation and sign a statement saying that they have reviewed your application requirements and their oil recommendation is suitable for your application. Document that and save it.

If you don’t follow that advice then you will likely face this. Your compressor may crash and when you go for damages the oil salesman is going to say:


“Your honor, this is our standard compressor oil and general product line card but we make oil, we are not compressor experts or in that business and if there was something special or unique about ABC 123’s compressor or other special requirement they should have told us” (thus the Caveat Emptor defense)

At that point not only have you had to buy a replacement airend; you just lost the case and can possibly add court costs and attorney fees to it as well.

 

[Mainia]

The large compressor has 2,500 hours on it and still in warranty. The other is 4 years old and is now a stand-by if the other is being serviced or down. As for warranty, we have the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act and also I have shot it by a factory Atlas tech about using other oils and he says many are using other oil then the extremely overpriced Atlas oil.

Also with Royal Purple to this site, then you go to the Industrial oils on their drop down bar you have a section that says rotary screw compressor. I know it is marketing, RP has a marketing pdf on page 4 with Ford Motor Company having 3 large Atlas Copco screws that used their Synfilm-GT. But can you believe the marketing??

http://www.royalpurpleindustrial.com/assets/Lowest_Total_Cost_Of_Ownership.pdf


They are throwing large name around here, but can I believe them with their reputation of being flamboyant with their advertising?



I just called Mobil's industrial tech dept and they said their oil is a Group 4 and has specific additives for a injected screw where they said RP does not have those additives that are screw specific. That can be easily said also.


Rolling the dice on these two, I would think Mobil would have a less risk factor in being the lower grade oil out of these two something tells me.

Anyone know of another industrial oil forum that may have already confronted this rotary screw oil issue? Not like I would have a catastrophic failure if I used RP. All modern oils are good these days. But would like to buy the better oil at a fair price.

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[ISO55000]

I know the warranty act well just by virtue of doing failure analysis for major warranty claims.

Let me give you an “example” to what to be very careful on. Not accusing anyone of anything but I have been through this and seen how the rulings went for numerous clients and you really need to pay attention to the details.

Your statement

also I have shot it by a factory Atlas tech about using other oils and he says many are using other oil then the extremely overpriced Atlas oil.


Sounds good but at its face value you would lose a claim. First the MM act does prohibit branded products as a requirement for a warranty but it DOES NOT even address whether there is a special additive, requirement, trade secret or other IP in their oil that the product requires.

If it is and you spec out a replacement that has no such property then you violated the warranty under the MM act. Remember, they have no legal obligation to tell you or ensure you know about any of that.

Additionally (playing attorney as I have had to answer for on the stand, I know this drill well) the factory tech said many do it and so forth.

I personally know for a fact many certainly substitute oils as well for the reasons he told you. (I'm one of the ones they come to do that, LOL)

What he didn’t say was that this would not affect the warranty. Even if he did, if he and his job were not high enough on the food chain to be on the corporate authorization signature card to speak on behalf of the company his word would not be binding on the company or its product.

(Forget all the TV shows, no court in this country can allow the word of an unauthorized person or agent to bond anyone or company to anything. You might be able to prosecute the individual but that’s it.)

Like I said earlier- there’s a REASON I said get your prospective lubrication vendors to document that their lubrication is fit for purpose.

As far as that advertisement (I am in the asset management profession and do the TCO calculations) goes, I can tell you that one you linked to is fraudulent and deliberately misleading intentionally preying on an ignorant audience. Just those energy claims alone are bogus because it’s a cumulative number based on alignment specs, vibration data, calculated stress reduction, optimized operation and the application of “precision maintenance”. It cannot be broken down and isolated against a single contributing factor. That’s a holistic number.

I could write a thesis on how they are using misleading data, non-correlative data and very selective wordsmithing deliberately to give the “illusion” that their product is the one and only explanation and contributing factor for those numbers just off of that brochure alone.

This is why they have the reputation they have in industry. But enough about RP. Don't want to derail this thread.


I will tell you that from a lubrication scenario an injected screw is radically different that its direct flood cousin and XOM’s statement about specific additives for this unique application are true.

The only 2 other forums I would trust would be at Noria and Reliability Web.

You “could” have a catastrophic failure or a substantial reduction in service life with RP (or any other product) if it is not spec’d out for an injected rotary screw but it would not be immediate. (pay attention to that word injected too)

Without going into great detail the injection method goes more from hydrodynamic to elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication. This allows a smaller airend to product more air (being slung faster basically). Oils formulated for this application are about 75% lubrication and 25% coolant under extreme loading conditions.

I strongly recommend for that application no more than a 90 day sampling window (full spectrum- not just a basic report) and react immediately with any deviation you get.

 

[ISO55000]

As a matter of professional courtesy, let me tell you what the ultimate failure is going to be when you use the wrong type fluid in your specific application and why it’s going to crash your air end.

This also may explain why it’s not immediately traced to the oil because the average mechanic (unless he is a compressor specialist) won’t see it.

Rotors on those types of airends have a different machined finish on the rotors and the sealing tips/strips.

The gears are also lapped to have almost true zero backlash. The lubricant must also act as a barrier fluid and coolant because of the relative speed and that finish affects the laminar flow of the characteristics of the film layer while it is aerated squeezing air as it gets compressed through the housing.

The wrong lubricant damages that finish- the air end starts running uniformly warmer and its efficiency drops. (Permanently)
This speeds the need for a standard overhaul. (Bearings, seals and beading the rotors)

When they crack it open after running like that they are going to tell you that you now need a rotor set and gear set. You just crashed the airend.

Don’t take the word on any forum as fact but call your tech or XOM rep and tell them what I posted and let them tell you.

I have had to deliver that bad news to many clients who did the same thing so that few dollars they saved on a standard compressor lube was insignificant when they have to buy a reman airend.

 

[Mainia]

Thanks very much for all the info. I will take your years of experience and stick with the Atlas oil. No need to increase the risk factor when it is not my money. I did not know injected screws could be that finicky about oil. In fact I called our salesman today and told him we are highly likely will be buying a 2nd small size screw 35 to 40 hp and run that as our main and use the 30hp we have now as the backup. This would happen in about a year or two when we get access to our full building and all the renovation is done.

I asked if there was a way we could get a 20% reduction in factory oil kits since we have 3 Atlas Copco screws now and looking at another one. He has to talk with people to see if he can get it done.

.

 

[tom slick]

Atlas Copco screw compressor oil was one of my first posts on Bitog a decade ago. I came to the same conclusion, nobody explicitly states their oil as a direct replacement. Because of that I never tried anything else.

Out of curiosity, are they variable speed? Mine were not but I thought the variable speed units were pretty slick.

 

[Mainia]

Yes, 11 hp and 30 hp are. We have a 7hp that is not.

Many air compressor companies "say" they have oil that is a direct replacement. But I would never use "their" home brew.


https://aircompressorservices.com/atlas-copco-5-gallon-synthetic-oil-replacement-roto-extend.html

http://www.ecompressedair.com/compressor...opco.aspx?jse=0

http://aircompressoroil.com/?p=16

.

 

[ISO55000]

Sure, anything to help you out so let me put your mind at ease a little bit.

I have to remain neutral specifically and exactly because some companies are clients and others partners and we have a ton of agency and secrecy agreements and that puts me in the position to watch my words carefully to make sure I don’t promote (or down) any product regardless of any personal belief or bias because in some cases I am in possession of proprietary information not generally available. I have learned to keep my mouth shut or bump up the conversation to a general level.

So, removing this “alleged” manufacturer you speak of and talk injected screws as an asset class regardless of OEM.

Yeah they have some unique requirements.

When they did their FEED and built their DFMEA they did modeling and consultation with at least 1 manufacturer because somebody had to define the magic properties the machine required and make sure it could be manufactured in the first place.

If that didn’t happen then the prototype would never have been made and there could not be sooper dooper OEM “fit for purpose” oil in the first place.

After all that “secret stuff” then either an oil OEM or a blender was contracted to make the branded stuff for company X. You can bet as part of that contract that there is some kind of clause defining a non-competition clause defining any time limits, similar recipes or what not because now that this oil company knows ‘”the secret” they can skirt around it. There are a million possible ways to do it.

Now there are all the other firms. You can bet they all bought a case of Company X’s wonder oil and had it subjected to every test known to man to break it down and see if they can clone it.

That’s where the unique qualities come in- it may not be a good business decision to develop a direct substitute. Might be protected under a patent or who knows what.

I don’t even waste my time reading manufacturing claims or sales recommendations when I spec out a package, I go straight for the jugulars because at the end of the day it’s my bond on the line.

The way I separate fact from fiction is the following test.

After I determine and validate all OEM and real world requirements of the application, I ask prospective vendors to not only sign a letterhead statement attesting their product is fit for purpose- I get them to send me a sample for independent verification. (Usually a liter)

Any that doesn’t get the boot right then and there.

I am confident telling you that those who will are reliable and you can consider their products with confidence.

The only thing they won’t do (except in cases where they are an authorized agent) is commit to a warranty support claim for their product. That’s not a machine issue but a legal issue.

Most will say use the OEM for the warranty period then call us.

I cannot endorse anyone’s product specifically but a lot of those brews are legitimate and can be used with confidence. I wouldn’t discount them out of the gate.

 

[CT8]

I would suggest the recommended proper spec oil.

 

[Shannow]

I started the move at our locations to get away from the traditional "oil free air"...funny, as one of the locations still had reciprocating compressors in parallel with oil free, and wanted the worn out oil frees to be replaced so.

The injected screws under company control always got OEM. Those under full operate and maintenance contracts, the contractors wore the maintenance cost, or the failure cost, and worked with Castrol, I believe, on a per application basis, and got similar outcomes to the OEM.

 

[Doug Hillary]

Hi,
Mainia - You could consult with the OreLube Corporation who manufacture speciality lubricants - based in New York

My first contact with OreLube was in 1975 - they were manufacturing synthetic engine lubricants at that time