Compressor Air Testing - cost? Who to use?

[maniago]

Analytical Chemists, Inc. in California

That's who I use
Their kits are a bit complicated to use and the instructions are terrible

I think there's a recommendation in this somewhere....

 

[Doc Harry]

I think there's a recommendation in this somewhere....

Not really. For the price I will put up terrible instructions. I've used their kit for so many years now that I've figured out how to work it.

Instructions will say something like, "Install the tube onto the quick-connect nipple with the arrow pointing in the proper direction."

Which way is the 'proper direction?' The instructions don't say. Gotta call the office to find out.

 

[Blue Abyss]

I have used the Analytical Chemists kit for years and I never thought it was complicated or had bad instructions. Just follow the pictures and you are good to go.
I just did a test with them and it was $120. One thing about their test, they pay the postage both ways. I am not sure about other companies but that might factor in to the overall cost.

Sometimes they can be a bit slow in returning the results.

 

[iain/hsm]

SNIP

Mechanical seperators won't remove triethyldeath from your air. Activated carbon will.

Well not quite, AC wont remove jack, not oil not hydrocarbons esters yayd yad yada

Activated carbon simply acts as a holding pond collecting all the long chain hydrocarbons from the accumulated
running hours and builds up this accumulating mass until water vapour comes along or a lowering of the back
pressure or at the end of the filter life or on overheating etc, etc

Then it dumps all this accumulated mess downstream into your cylinder in a heart beat, the time taken for a single cylinder fill.

AC works by adsorption not absorption neither is a a catalytic chemical converter.

Its a simple cheap trick holding pond solution for an accumulating mass of chemical toxins
waiting for the chance to dump the lot into your cylinder in favour and in exchange for a little water.

Not quite the reassurance we are led to believe now is it. Iain Middlebrook

---------- Post added February 19th, 2014 at 10:09 AM ----------

Regarding air purity analysis labs and an oil-free oil-less Rix

Why bother the test house. oil free equipment is a problem to them there is no money in
it for them.

Why test for something you don't have.

All air analysis outfits charge a considerable amount in the costing for oil vapour analysis,.
It is by far the single most expensive component of the testing by a factor of 10,
Also the single part you don't need with an oil-free oil-less Rix.

You could ask them to quote without the oil part of the test, and depending on the method used,
if they cant move on.

With a Rix you don't have oil therefore why test or something you don't have any more than a farmer
has his milk tested for oil, its pointless and a waste of resource. In the UK we have the HSE our
governing body regarding oil free and oil less compressors they take a pragmatic view and as a result only
testing for CO, CO2, O2 and water vapour is well accepted.

Over here UK dive shops with Rix pumps self test and self certify using Draeger or equivalent stain
tubes cost $5 each tube each gas to test every six months. So $20 a test $40 a year

We also have never in 30 years failed a gas spectrographic test some of which
for offshore gas compressors cost upward of $800 to test in heliox and oxygen service.

Frankly with some of the testing charges quoted in this post you would pay for another brand new
Rix SA-6 over its life with simply just the money you save on not using expensive oil, and on the increase in
extended chemical filter life and also by being oil less the cost of spectrographic oil analysis for a non
existent and minute possible atmospheric hydrocarbon long chain trace.

Where do you guys all live China.............Iain Middlebrook