CompAir launches enhanced Ultima oil-free range with up to 50% smaller footprint

The new range incorporates a brand-new drive concept, delivering best in class flow and efficiency. Noise levels are as low as 69 dB(A), making Ultima one of the quietest oil-free compressors available today.

With a footprint of less than two square metres, the new Ultima is 34 per cent smaller than the first-generation models and up to 50 per cent smaller than many competitive models, offering a significant space advantage for modern production facilities.

The new Ultima is available with a maximum working pressure of up to 10 bar and flow rates up to 20 cubic meters per minute.

Completely redesigned air end and drive concept

At the heart of Ultima are two, state of the art, oil-free compression stages - directly driven by CompAir's U-Drive Technology. Two, high-speed permanent magnetic motors replace the traditional gearbox design, resulting in less friction losses and high efficiency throughout their full operating range. In addition, the motors exceed the highest IE5 efficiency standards, with an additional IES2 rating for the entire drive design.

Traditional two-stage oil-free compressors are driven by a single gear wheel, which can consume large amounts of energy and requires high volumes of oil to lubricate the gears. In contrast, Ultima uses a digital gearbox concept that allows each compression stage to operate independently at its optimal speed. This allows the compressor to match the required load, dynamically with optimised airflow, for peak efficiency, whatever the demand.

Water cooled design for greater efficiency

Ultima uses water in a closed-loop circuit to cool the airend jackets. This allows greater heat transfer and cooling efficiencies than with an oil-cooled system, as well as ensuring as little oil as possible is used in the system for assured air purity. Water-cooling also places less stress on these components, and the closed circuit avoids any ingress of dirt. This helps avoid maintenance issues that might otherwise arise during the compressor's lifetime to reduce service costs.

Optional heat recovery is available on all Ultima compressors. This can recover up to 90 per cent of the heat generated during compression, which would otherwise be lost to the atmosphere. The recovered heat allows for hot water temperatures of up to 90deg Celsius providing maximum flexibility for use in heating or process systems.

Heat extraction in the water-cooled models is entirely internal, so there is no requirement for bulky ducting or wide air clearances between each compressor. This allows units to be installed closer together, saving even more space.

A range of heat recovery options are available, including integration into the turnkey E-max solution, providing heat exchangers, pumps and controls in one plug-and-play unit.

Power upgrade

Each unit is fully upgradeable between the 55 to 110 kW range. This means that if a site's air demand increases in the future, customers can choose the optimal Ultima variant based on the increased capacity. There is no need to purchase a new compressor, eliminating the associated downtime or delivery wait that comes with upgrading to a new system.

The proven Delcos XL SE7 controller, with large, 7-inch, high resolution touchscreen display provides user friendly and intuitive control. Real time displays of key compressor parameters and built-in graphical trending provide greater insight on compressed air performance, for easy diagnostics and monitoring. The unit is also fully compatible with CompAir's SmartAir Master, for operation of up to 12 fixed or variable speed compressors.

Ultima is also iConn enabled, at no additional cost. The CompAir iConn platform is a cloud-based system to support compressed air analytics, providing predictive maintenance and condition-based monitoring to help avoid unplanned maintenance and downtime.

All models are offered with CompAir's Assure service agreement and extended warranty.

David Bruchof, product manager for CompAir's oil-free compressor solutions said: "Since its launch in 2017, Ultima has proved itself to be an efficient, economical, reliable, oil-free compressed air solution for industries around the world.

"In developing the next generation of Ultima, we set out to meet three customer demands. First to deliver even better efficiency and performance. Second, to deliver reliability and air purity for the most demanding applications. Finally, we wanted to make the new Ultima even easier to use and flexible for future compressed air demand.

"The result is a smarter, cleaner and more space-efficient approach to the generation of oil-free compressed air."