Tips for shutting down and restarting your Atlas compressor

If you need to temporarily shut down your air compressor due to a drop in production demand, we've summarized these air compressor shutdown and restart tips that will help you operate in the best possible way.
 
Stopping/pausing your compressor: Your air compressor system will be suspended or shut down for a long period of time and you want to know how to achieve this in an efficient way. Please refer to the following guidelines (based on different compressor types)
 
Atlas VSD type air compressors: Perform the shutdown procedure. Make sure that the power supply is retained to keep the capacitor bank charged and ready for restart.
 
Atlas water-cooled compressors: After the compressor has been shut down, make sure that the water supply is disconnected. This will prevent the formation of condensate inside the compressor rotor. Don't forget to turn the water supply back on when starting up and make sure that all blast cooling systems are turned off.
 
Atlas Z oil-free compressors: The main drive shaft of this type of compressor needs to be rotated manually by rotating the motor coupling once a week for 3 complete weeks at a time. This is to prevent jamming of the low and high pressure compression sections during extended shutdowns. If the Z compressor is of the VSD type, please do not forget to turn the power back on after manually rotating the compressor. This will ensure that the inverter is driving the capacitor.
 
Atlas centrifugal/ZH compressors: Perform the shutdown procedure and keep the power on. When the compressor is shut down, the compressor needs to be kept electrically connected to the auxiliary oil pump. This maintains the oil temperature and periodically starts the auxiliary oil pump to circulate warm oil around the bearings during extended shutdowns.

Restarting the compressor unit
The first step is to turn off the power to the compressor; there you can remove the drive shaft protection cover and turn the drive coupling to check if the compressor turns freely. If the compressor turns freely, reinstall the guard and turn on the power to the compressor.
Next, turn on the cooling water and the blast air cooling system (in the case of water-cooled air compressors). Close the air compressor discharge valve, start the air compressor, and then slowly open the discharge valve until the air pressure in the compressor and gas line system is balanced and the compressor is reconnected.
Please note that if the air compressor is connected to a controller, make sure that the air compressor is integrated to the controller or optimizer.