Almost every machine in an industry, work shop, or garage vibrates when in motion. While in most cases these vibrating machines aren’t harmful, sometimes in case of high frequency vibration can cause machinery to fail and cause pipe fittings and welds to leak. That’s when every compressor must be isolated from vibration with an air compressor mounting pads. So, when it comes to vibration issues in an air compressor, there are two places that are always a major concern.
Every compressor manufacturer says that you need a vibration isolators or flex hose between the compressor and the pipe system. It is important that everybody knows how critical they are to the air compressor. The reason being your compressor vibrates at high frequency when the air goes down the pipe. The vibrations from different sources have different harmonics that vibrate at different frequencies and different amplitudes. When you don’t isolate the vibrations of different harmonics, it wears off the components much more quickly, resulting in lesser life span of the machine.
Although most compressors are built and tested to withstand its own vibration, but they were not built to withstand different harmonics. There is no way a manufacturer could possibly test all the conditions that a compressor may face especially when having infinite number of possibilities. Also the problems that we are discussing are not immediate results. They are in fact a long term effect that usually takes a couple of years for the lack of vibration isolation to cause such problem. However there are also chances that it may never cause a problem. But investing in an anti- vibration mounting pads, prevent thousands of dollars in broken parts and they surely seem like a no-brainer to me.
Vibration pads where the compressor is mounted
The other place where you have to worry about vibration in an air compressor is where the compressor is mounted. There should be a rubber pad or foot at the bottom of the compressor. Sometimes the compressor will come with these pads already installed, but sometimes you will have to add them yourself. If you don’t do this, the weld where the foot of the tank meets will crack. Again this could take several years, but why make a tank that should last decades only last a few years? This issue can also be easily avoided with a little bit of investment in compressor mounting pads or sheets.