I've worked in a series of plants for the same company and the air in each is considerably less than ideal, to say the least. Oily here, wet in other places. We currently use (mostly) Fairchild T6000 series I/P converters and go through a lot of them. To be fair, we have a lot of these in service, so the law of averages catches up.

Questions: What I/P in your experience holds up the best with less than ideal instrument air?

Do you know of a make/model that can be returned for repair/exchange or refurb?

 

Update: Got a (Quick!) response from Fairchild:

"Unfortunately, these units usually can not be repaired because the oily substance permeates the internal components. The T6000 is probably the most forgiving because it is a voice coil device and the specific actuation components are not quite as affected as other styles would be, however, oily air will still foul the T6000."

 

IME buy coalescing filters and put them at each drop. I/Ps are cheap enough they are not worth trying to repair.

--
Bob

 

I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm going to be a bit blunt here ...

FIX THE AIR !!!

By looking for a "more resilient device" you are just delaying the inevitable. The I/P is still going to fail anyway. Instrument air is one of any site's critical services. Most site's will have more than just I/P converters hooked on to that air.

On one site where I work last month they lost around US$80K worth of very expensive sensors and around 12 hours of lost production because water entered the instrument air system and got into the electronics.

Have a look at your potential risk if you get water or excessive oil into your air systems and calculate the possible lost time and repair expenses. I would be very surprised if you cant financially justify repairing your air systems. How much time are you spending in identifying, exchanging and repairing I/P converters alone ?

Rob

 

I agree with Bob. I put a refrigerated dryer at the compressor (or on the main branch dedicated to instrument air), especially in humid climes, with a particulate filter followed by a coalescing filter at each point/cluster of use.