Rotary screw compressors

As an industry leading supplier of rotary screw compressors, 360 Air Services offer equipment with high free air delivery (FAD), low power consumption and unrivalled reliability.

Whether your business has low and intermittent air demand or whether you have high and continuous demand for 24-hours per day - 360 Air have the right products to suit your requirements.

Our team of specialists, with over 100 year's experience in the industry, can help you determine the perfect product to suit your individual requirements and maximise your return on investment.

With a vast portfolio of oil-lubricated and oil-free, fixed and variable speed, screw compressors ranging from 2.2kW up to 350kW and with integrated air receivers, dryers and filters - you can be sure that we have the right product for you.

Oil-Lubricated or Oil-Free?

Oil-Lubricated (Oil Injected/Oil Flooded):

Oil-lubricated rotary screw compressors inject oil into the air-end for lubrication, sealing and cooling purposes. Due to these points, oil-lubricated compressors are often much more efficient than oil-free compressors therefore are particularly attractive to most standard users of compressed air. Another major benefit to most users is the lower noise level when compared with most oil-free machines.

The downside of this method is that oil is introduced to the compressed air.

Despite being oil-lubricated, most modern compressors have high efficiency separators installed to ensure minimal oil is carried over into the compressed air line. Following this, additional air treatment can be installed to ensure you achieve extremely high levels of compressed air quality to match most levels of required compressed air quality.

Therefore, oil lubricated machines are usually the choice for most manufacturing, construction, recycling, and general air usage applications. 

Oil-Free

Oil-free rotary screw compressors do not use oil in the compression process - they rely on specialist coated rotors and precision tolerances to provide the lubrication and sealing. 

Due to not being lubricated, oil-free compressors are often less efficient than oil-lubricated compressors therefore should only be selected when necessary.

Due to no oil being introduced, the quality of compressed air generated by these oil-free air compressors is similar to that of the input air- therefore, the air remains oil-free.

Only minimal downstream filtration is required to achieve the highest possible air-quality.

Oil-free air compressors are usually recommended for industries where air quality is critical and must be completely free from oil vapour and moisture such as food & beverage, medical & pharmaceutical, electronics and automotive spraying.

Fixed Speed or Variable Speed?

Fixed Speed 

As the name suggest, a fixed speed compressor can only run at 100% utilisation and cannot adapt to meet fluctuating air demands.

Therefore, if your air demand is relatively fixed and continuous - then a fixed speed compressor is probably the correct solution. 

Due to being lower in purchase cost, a fixed speed compressor often seems like the best solution - however, if sized incorrectly and it does not match the air demand, fixed speed compressors can often cost you in the long run with additional energy usage. 

Fixed speed compressors should only be used for fluctuating air demands when partnered with a variable speed compressor - in this case, the fixed speed compressor can cover the fixed 'base load' and the variable speed compressor can run additionally to speed up/slow down to meet the varying air demand perfectly.

Variable Speed

As the name suggest, a variable speed compressor operates with a frequency inverter to provide a variable output.

Due to this technology, variable speed compressors can constantly adapt to the fluctuating air demand to ensure that compressor is only drawing the necessary power to provide the required air. 

In many cases, variable speed compressors can save up to 50% of your energy costs, when compared with a fixed speed compressor, and also reduce the impact on the environment.

Although variable speed compressors usually have a higher purchase cost than fixed speed compressors - the cost difference can often be covered by the energy savings that can be achieved if sized correctly.