Moisture?

[excess11]

Hello, What is a good way to remove moisture from compressed air. I have seen refrigerated dryers,too expensive!! A desiccant dryer seems more like what I am looking for. What air dryers have you used and with what success!

[mro]

Dryers were to pricey for me and I really did not need one.
Link is for a seperator simular to what I have.
I have one oiler and one seperator next to the compressor,
When I paint I by-pass the oiler, use different hoses which I connect to to second regulator and water seperator which I mount on a roll around work bench.

http://www.gosuburban.com/automatic_....html?kc=xq5Hk


mro

[webbcraft2150]

Refer dryers are high buck, as you have figured out. They work well in really humid enviornments and can supply virtually water free air. Small dessicant dryers will work almost as good, but unless you have a regenerative dryer, you have to change the dessicant once it is saturated. If you have the bead type dessicant, you can dry it out in your oven and reuse. The link shown shows a pretty good "point of use" seperator. There are many different grades of seperators available, everything from only stopping chunks to medical grade air. Depending on your budget, and how "clean" you want your air, I would go with a oil/water coalescing seperator followed by a particulate filter. Draining your tank every day is your first line of defense. Couple of places to look at options is Quincy Compressors, Zander Filtration, Wilkerson and Hankison. Graingers has a pretty good selection of filter/dryer/seperators also.

[mro]

Graingers

Have an account with them.
Can almost always find what ever you need somewhere else substantially cheaper but when you don't have the time and there close by... there good.


mro

[Ken Talbot]

Look around for a desiccant snake
I picked up a kit off the internet a while back that included two snakes and an indicator unit. I don't remember what I paid, but it seemed pretty reasonable at the time. It works great for my airbrush and my HVLP conversion gun.

[HobbyMan]

I am not sure what type it was but In shop class we had a big dryer that had a reservior that you drained every day. We used that air for our plasma cutter. It took quite a bit of water out of the system. And yes, draining your compressor tank every day is a good start. When I started my welding class the tank had about 2gal of water in it.(no joke)

[MacMcMacmac]

It was probably a deliquescent dryer. It has chunks of material in it that absorb the water and turn it into a briny solution that you drain off at the bottom. It works, but it is messy, does not tolerate hot air, and can rust out the coated tank it's in with shorts-staining results when it goes off. For short duration drying, you can try the coil of copper tube in a bucket of ice water method. If you are feeling adventurous, you could install some bulkhead fittings in an old refrigerator and install a copper coil in that. Keeps your beer cool too. You will have to have a way to drain off the condensate though. Careful piping design can eliminate a lot of the nuisance moisture in the air, which allows you to get by with a small amount of filtration at the point of use (don't install filters directly on a compressor tank if possible).

I once had to go to a shop that was complaining about the amount of water coming out of their air lines. We had installed a 400 gallon air tank with an automatic timed condensate drain, so I was wondering what was going on. Turns out, some teflon tape had come off a pipe thread and blocked the drain, resulting in the entire tank filling with water. The compressor outlet was actually under water. It took me about 1/2 hour with a 1/2" air line connected to the drain to get it all out. I was shooting water like a fire tug out into the dirt parking lot.

[HobbyMan]

wow