Anyone here know much about vane style air compressors? i have a chance to buy one quite cheap , it's a 30 hp unit, 110 CFM ( who needs that much air I know , but I am very impatient when it comes to waiting for a compressor to build air ) it works , the guy says the compressor part of it is getting worn.

 

We had some smaller Alpha-Laval rotary vane compressors.
They were decent, on some the vanes got worn, and you would get by turning them around, on others the rotor got worn- then it was time for a major overhaul, and in some cases the shaft separated from the rotor. We got around this by installing a smooth start electronic.
These buggers did not use normal compressor oil but 140W gear oil, you could kill them fast with compressor oil.
We built a nifty model with a frequency converter that regulated the pressure. It worked nicely without an air tank, it would turn just enough to hold the desired pressure.
All of them put a lot of oil into the compressed air after a short runtime- but with a small tank above the compressor we could recover and reuse the oil and get good air.

HTH

AlpineRAM