KC130Loadie
Aluminum
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2014
- Location
- San Diego, Bay Park
TL;DR
We bought this air compressor on its' advertising stating that "Built for 100% Continuous Duty." After 1.25 years, 90% of the time being hard down and nothing but headaches from the service people, new Curtis Service Rep says:
"We have spoken to the marketing and technical department about the duty cycle. Here’s what’s true, the units have a 100% continuous run cycle, when sized properly the units can operate 100% of the time with 75% of the time loaded and 25% of the time unloaded. If the way the Quincy was operating during our visit is any indicator of air demand on a typical day, the units were undoubtably running 100% of the time loaded which can lead to excessive wear and premature failure. I was able to confirm the units are pressure lubricated. I apologize our lack of knowledge with these pumps didn’t aspire confidence, but we are going to uphold any commitments we make and you can hold me accountable."
I'm scratching my head here...this is a Start-Stop machine...so if the motor is on, that means we need air and the pump is Loaded. Does this make any sense?
The Long Version
My place of employment purchased a FS-Curtis ML-20 Duplex Compressor March of 2018, and we didn't install it or start it up until May 2018. The install was checked out and signed off by a Curtis technician for our extended 5-year warranty. Since then it has been broken down 95% of the time. During what appeared to be a cleaning house of personnel from the Curtis distributor in the SoCal area, we had to go through quite the process getting the new folks handling our warranty repairs for our lemon up-to-speed. The unit did not come with any type of run-hour meters, so I installed those to keep track of oil changes, etc. The unit didn't even make it to the 50-hour mark, let alone the 500-hour mark for its first oil change (per the manual) before it started eating intake valves, etc. Both pumps on the unit have had multiple full rebuilds. The control enclosure vibrates so bad that it has destroyed 3 control transformers by shearing off the metal feet, one of the motor contactors burned up, and after having the last warranty work completed back this September (the entire unit had been down for over 8 months waiting for the distributor to get their act together), I turned it on for the second time since then (to test new plumbing) and a flexible stainless line from the high-pressure discharge port on the #1 pump to an after-cooler failed catastrophically. Luckily I had just stepped out a minute prior and didn't still have my face in the vicinity where it had been previously listening for leaks and knocks.
Of course, I have wanted the entire unit taken away and a refund given since day one, but was overruled by the bossman, and now the Distributor will keep coming our to "fix" it, but will not take it back. I was pretty fed up with the past year of non-performance and having to rent compressors, but after it trying to kill me recently I am tempted to just cut it up into pieces and craigslist the remaining parts.
In all, there have been over 25+ visits by techs from two different locations working on this thing.
Has anyone had a similar experience?
We bought this air compressor on its' advertising stating that "Built for 100% Continuous Duty." After 1.25 years, 90% of the time being hard down and nothing but headaches from the service people, new Curtis Service Rep says:
"We have spoken to the marketing and technical department about the duty cycle. Here’s what’s true, the units have a 100% continuous run cycle, when sized properly the units can operate 100% of the time with 75% of the time loaded and 25% of the time unloaded. If the way the Quincy was operating during our visit is any indicator of air demand on a typical day, the units were undoubtably running 100% of the time loaded which can lead to excessive wear and premature failure. I was able to confirm the units are pressure lubricated. I apologize our lack of knowledge with these pumps didn’t aspire confidence, but we are going to uphold any commitments we make and you can hold me accountable."
I'm scratching my head here...this is a Start-Stop machine...so if the motor is on, that means we need air and the pump is Loaded. Does this make any sense?
The Long Version
My place of employment purchased a FS-Curtis ML-20 Duplex Compressor March of 2018, and we didn't install it or start it up until May 2018. The install was checked out and signed off by a Curtis technician for our extended 5-year warranty. Since then it has been broken down 95% of the time. During what appeared to be a cleaning house of personnel from the Curtis distributor in the SoCal area, we had to go through quite the process getting the new folks handling our warranty repairs for our lemon up-to-speed. The unit did not come with any type of run-hour meters, so I installed those to keep track of oil changes, etc. The unit didn't even make it to the 50-hour mark, let alone the 500-hour mark for its first oil change (per the manual) before it started eating intake valves, etc. Both pumps on the unit have had multiple full rebuilds. The control enclosure vibrates so bad that it has destroyed 3 control transformers by shearing off the metal feet, one of the motor contactors burned up, and after having the last warranty work completed back this September (the entire unit had been down for over 8 months waiting for the distributor to get their act together), I turned it on for the second time since then (to test new plumbing) and a flexible stainless line from the high-pressure discharge port on the #1 pump to an after-cooler failed catastrophically. Luckily I had just stepped out a minute prior and didn't still have my face in the vicinity where it had been previously listening for leaks and knocks.
Of course, I have wanted the entire unit taken away and a refund given since day one, but was overruled by the bossman, and now the Distributor will keep coming our to "fix" it, but will not take it back. I was pretty fed up with the past year of non-performance and having to rent compressors, but after it trying to kill me recently I am tempted to just cut it up into pieces and craigslist the remaining parts.
In all, there have been over 25+ visits by techs from two different locations working on this thing.
Has anyone had a similar experience?