Becoming educated on the different types of compressors and the different compressor manufacturers is an essential part of the buying process. There are many sources available to help you learn which air compressor and compressor accessories are right for you. There is more to the buying process than purchasing the first one you see and installing it. The wrong one for your application will wind up costing you money.



There are three basic types of such compressors. These are rotary screw, centrifugal and reciprocating. Each type also has different styles, including water and air cooled, single stage or multistage, and oil flooded or oil free air.

Perusing the literature provided by the manufacturers of compressors will help you to gain a good understanding of how each type works, and is necessary in order to make the right selection for your business. All of them perform the same end function, which is to compress air to a higher pressure, but their methods of accomplishing this differ significantly. These differences help them adapt to different working environments and applications.

Two inexpensive choices in compressors are the rotary screw one and the reciprocating compressors. Both types work on the same principle, but in different manners. One uses a rotor to generate high pressure air and one uses a piston, respectively. They take in one volume of air and force it into a smaller volume, creating pressure.

Both are capable of outputs between 1 and 600 horsepower, or more. While there are a few of these types of oil free air compressors, most are oil-flooded, or lubricated. Because the lubrication can cause oil to get into the air and cause problems with the compressor components, most compressor manufacturers will include a separator with the purchase of lubricated compressors. Both the rotary screw compressors and the reciprocating compressor are inexpensive.

The centrifugal one is the last type of compressor. It performs the same function as the others, but in a mechanically different way. It uses increased velocity to increase the air pressure instead of squeezing it. The centrifugal compressor is air cooled, and produces oil free air. The oil free air means no separator is necessary.

The centrifugal compressor is considered very low maintenance because it has very few moving parts and can run for long periods of time before service is needed. Compressor manufacturers usually sell the centrifugal air compressor system to places like hospitals because clean, uncontaminated oxygen is of the utmost importance.