Where can one find figures on the initial vs operating costs of gas powered air compressors vs pto hydraulic that seem to be becoming the standard on service trucks? I'm a field tech at a Cat dealer now that seems to be stuck in the 60s-70s. My "new" truck has a gas compressor, 13yr old bed and 22yr old electric 6k crane. I'll be leaving soon and trying to figure out which way to go to rig out my next truck.
Well, with gas you're not piling hours on the truck engine. They probably use less fuel, too:beatsme.
With hydraulic powered compressor you don't have fouled plugs, run out of gas, flooded engines due to floats that bounce around on the road, broken starter ropes and recoil problems. The only down fall I have seen with a hydraulic compressor is the chance of broken or leaky lines. The other thing I like about my hydraulic compressor is if you need a few more cfm for the air arc or 1" impact just bump your rpm's up a bit, I set mine at 1200 most of the time but at 1500 it will make a lot more cfm. I don't know what the cost difference is but I would gladly pay double for a good hydraulic compressor if I needed one
Stop worrying about having a $100,000 truck to drive around and focus on what you're out there for. Does the crane give you any grief? And are your tools falling out of holes in the bed?
Actually yes the crane I have now gives me plenty of grief. I'm constantly replacing solenoids and switches on it, the winch motor has overheated and quit more than a few times and the only reason it does what I need most of the time is because all the overload and safety's are bypassed. The air compressor I have now will NOT keep up with my 3/4" impact much less 1", and it's got this issue of falling dead when the unloader valve idles it down.
Sounds like that truck needs to go. Sorry about that. Not much you can do if the powers that be think it's just fine. I have a Miller Trailblazer Air Pac 302 on my truck. 30 CFM compressor, 13,000 watt generator, 400 amp stick, 300 amp suitcase MIG, 450 amp 12/24 V charger/booster, and it can run the Miller Spectrum 875 plasma cutter that will cut ⅞" iron. Best investment we ever made in my opinion.
My thoughts are that if you need to run a 1" rattle gun busting wheels or sprocket segment bolts, you probably need the hydraulic. A gas engine unit putting out that much air is going to take a whole lot of room in the bed and weights a bunch. I never had the maintenance and repair issues with the gas powered units as long as they were taken care of. I know a long time ago that a belt driven compressor on a Ford Super Duty was $10,000. When I set up my business I wasn't going to do the monster jobs anymore so I settled for a $1,200 Emglo that pushed 17CFM. The Honda motor never gave so much as a hick up and I had plenty of air for the type of work I did.
The Trailblazer Air Pac is only about a foot longer than a standard Bobcat 225 that most trucks already have PLUS you don't have the separate air compressor. With a 30 CFM compressor you don't need more than a 20 gallon storage/condensation tank to run any airgun. We have used our big ¾" gun and we haven't even mounted a tank yet. The Air Pac may measures 56" long x 24" wide x 28" high
There is good and bad to it all, with no air leaks, we would unhook and pull a engine from a 235 or 973 and only start the compressor once or twice, electric crane was nice, didn't have to hear truck running, would just start it up before the heavy lift, doing head gaskets and stuff indoors was nice, no fumes. But on a busy job cycle times sucked, with the old electric crane every time you (Needed ) it , your stress level would rise like trying to beat a freight train at a crossing.
I used to think a hyd. compressor would be nice until I worked with an other mech. that had one. Along with the noise of the truck running, the hydraulics were very loud, a constant hi pitched whine. Suddenly my gas powered wasn't so bad. I'm currently working on building another truck and am seriously looking at an enclosed generator (Very quiet) and using a large electric air compressor. The generator is propane powered and I use propane for cutting anyway. I don't do much heavy welding anymore, mostly 1/8" rod so I'm also looking at an invertor welder which is very portable, about the weight and size of a suitcase welder. And if needed I still have 2 or 3 gas welders to choose from. Still in the thinking stage but I'm thinking it should work great and be very quiet.
One of the trucks at work has the trailblazer Air Pac on it, nice machine. Makes lots of air and has a jump start feature for boosting dead machines. NICE It will run the bigger tools but it has a nasty habit of shutting down due to compressor overheat. I think that the biggest problem is not enough air flow around the machine, looks like it needs to be pretty well out on an open deck to get enough air for cooling. Deck space on a shop truck can be a premium. That is where the pto driven or truck engine driven units are nice. But there is a cost, lots of engine hours just for air Hmmmmm Like anything, you need to weigh the pro's and con's What works for me, might not work for you. I like a big truck with PTO powered compressor and crane. When I need the air, I need the air. Waiting for 30 to60 seconds for the compressor to build up between pad bolts is just not acceptable to me. Not being able to keep up with an air arc torch is not acceptable. On a day when you are really needing the air, a 70 CFM VMAC is just the thing. But that is just me
I have had all 3, the under the hood belt drive was a pain as the belt would wear out at the worst time. As a company man I had a Pto powered that was brand new and worked great, but you couldn't run crane and compressor at the same time, and the older I get the less I like hearing the truck run and sucking fumes, also the newer trucks are fussy about idling and regeneration, with some of the newer fords needing engine swaps every 20k a gas compressor couldn't hurt. When I went on my own almost 15 years ago, used service trucks were expensive and not as plentiful, I bought a gas compressor with an onan, used from a friend and is in the 35 cfm range and has no problem keeping up with a 1in gun, and i had $500 into it. The key is to use the large air hose and shut the fuel off before driving around.
Everybody wants/needs something a bit different. If you do a fair bit of welding I do like the air pack setup. Then there's the underhood belt drive units. Some direct drive PTO compressors out there. Twenty years ago I built my own hydraulic drive compressor for a service truck we put together on the cheap. Worked great, used a good sized gear pump on an electric shift pto and on the motor end belt drove the compressor, kept the motor rpm's up and the sound at low frequencies. Adjustable flow divider, if you needed more CFM, just turn the handle. Cheap and pretty quiet. The way I would probably go if I had some money to spend and wanted to save space and hours on the truck engine would be something like this: http://vmacair.com/product/raptair-**-multifunction/ Does literally everything, runs on diesel, and if you're only using air, it actually shuts the little Kubota engine off until you need more air. Has an SAE "A" mount where you can add a small hydraulic pump to run a crane, winch, stabilizer jack, or whatever, gives you 18 horspower to play with that would be like 10gpm @ 3,000 psi for example. 300 amps welding at 70% duty, 200 amps @ 100%. Probably cost more than my truck, but that would be my dream date. Cheers, Lanway
Vanair makes something similar called air'n'arc with a 29hp gas or 25hp diesel option, 35cfm@175 I think. It would work out well because i honestly don't need a welder that much but when I do there's usually no way to do the job without. That way I wouldn't have a welder on the truck hardly getting used. Right now I don't even have one, big wigs don't think we need welders. I'm not sure what the cfm is on the compressor I have to use now but it's 14hp. And for sure I'm looking for a 7-8k, 20-25ft, pto hydraulic crane. With the electric one I have to have the truck running anyway or it eats even more solenoids than normal, could be that it's 22yrs old too idk.
Something to keep in mind with older trucks and cranes that have been "tuned" a bit, when I worked for the local Deere dealer they had two different service trucks of the same vintage, about ten years old I think, one crane didn't get the load off the ground and folded the box up it was mounted to, the other they were swapping six cylinder engines in an excavator, got as far as lowering the reman engine into the hole, had to boom down a hair to line it up, dropped about a foot as the metal box gave way on that one. In both cases the cranes were inspected and they were found to be on the high side but within factory tolerance for lifting power. Constant use and the fact that the boxes were minimally overbuilt were contributing factors to what very well could have been fatal failures. The dealer promptly replaced all their service trucks with an eye toward sturdiness and long working life instead of the lowest bid. :my2c
I worry about that almost everytime I use my crane. The crane is a 92' model, the bed an 01'. They pulled it off my old 300k mile truck and slapped it on chassis with some paint and call it new. They supposedly load and function test them, but somehow it didn't even work when I got it back. It's pretty embarrassing. Which is part of why my days are numbered as a dealer/corporate tech. I like your sig. I do work for a pipeline rental company that has a whole fleet of Morookas
Sweet.... Pipeliners seem to love these things! I don't have much for the newer machines, but if you happen to need any replacement parts for the Morookas or other rubber tracked dumpers, I would appreciate it if you gave me a try. If you google Lantraxco you'll find more information than you want about us, lol.