Case Study – Networking Different Brands of Air Compressors Together

We recently worked with a water treatment facility on a compressed air project with the goal of networking two different brands of air compressors together. Not long ago, this customer purchased a brand new rotary screw unit from another compressor company. They then purchased a new Quincy QGV-100 Rotary Screw Compressor from us. Their goal was to have these two compressors communicate with each other for maximum energy efficiency. The other air compressor companies who were bidding on this job were not able to get these units to communicate without the additional purchase of an expensive central controller. That’s where we stepped in and provided a quick and easy solution.

To get these two different brands of compressors to communicate, we installed Quincy Compressor’s Competitive Interface Module to the control panel of the competitive machine, which controls the unit through digital contacts. This module is then networked into the Quincy unit via its normal CANbox communications. (The CANbox is basically a networking interface that takes commands from the master machine, the Quincy QGV in this case, and translates them into digital outputs to control the other air compressor.) This means that the Quincy QGV is basically the central controller as it has central controller software built into it. Both compressors automatically start and stop at the customer’s specified times via the weekly timer in the Quincy controller. The network will automatically start, stop, load, and unload the units as the air demand fluctuates, providing the most energy-efficient compressed air system for this customer.

To learn more about this project, or more about networking different brands of air compressors together, contact C.H. Reed!