Harbor Freight Air Dryer

[chrisp]

Originally Posted by rsanter

I have a snap-on filter/separator that is for use with painting ( not their average air tool one) mounted direct to my compressor,
(I also habe a spare Motor guard unit)

bob

you mounted the snap on filter directly to the line exiting the compressor?? dosen't it accumulate with water quickly??

chrisp

[rsanter]

it accumulates water but I do not percieve that it collects it too quickly. I have it there as I wanted to cover all the lines (3 of them) going to different parts of the garage

[Avalonjr]

When I was rebuilding a fabric airplane I sprayed a lot of butyrate dope. It was sensitive to moisture. I had the usual filters and dryers on the compressor, but what I found worked the best was to hook my spray gun to a second tank... this functioned as a poor man's refregerated dryer or knockout tank.

The tank was from a busted portable compressor. I piped the compressed air in one opening and the gun out of another fitting high on the tank. The cold steel of the tank sitting on the concrete knocked all the moisture out of the compressed air.

It was amazing how much water collected in the second tank.

The bigger or colder the second tank, the better this will work. If you wanted to go really crazy, but get 100% removal, you could throw the 2nd tank in a tub and fill the tub with ice.

The theory here is that when you compress air it gets warm and can hold more moisture. When you expand the compressed air it cools. If it cools below the dewpoint, the moisture condenses into droplets. The point being that you need to cool the compressed air somehow to form the droplets if you are going to be able to collect them or filter them out. Long hoses, below ground piping, second tanks, marine chillers all do the same job. I like the second tank idea since it does a nice job chillin and collectin and gives the system a little more surge capacity if the compressor is undersized.

Just remember to drain the tank often and filter the air coming out of the second tank. I think you'll have great results with the filters and seperators that you already own, just add another tank.

Good luck.

[Gene Newcomb]

We do what like avalonjr. 3+ tanks around the shop with automatic dump valves that will come open several seconds every few hours. One collects a bunch of water. It is after a rise to the ceiling (30') over a doorway and back down. The one by the plasma not so much but it still stains the concrete.
That said I am not all that happy w/ my consumable life. On a great day I can cut a 4x8 3/8" plate of 9 3/8 circles with one nozzle and half a tip. Then the next day I'll blow the nozzle in 3 circles.
gene

[wayneman]

I have found the best way to get water out of my air lines is to run 60 feet of copper pipe zig zag across the wall then to a water filter at the drop the water condenses in the copper pipe than flows back towards the compresser also you should never use toilet paper in the plasma filter the paper breaks down and contaminates the lines and air vavle I found this out the hard way