Technical Air Compressor Water Problems

Fed, Your close, But every 90° bend is creating heat, I believe i counted 17, An it's a very impressive lay out! But if you had 50' of coiled tubing in water, It Trump's everything mentioned, any point of resistance is heat... If you buy a 50' coil of copper tubing, drop it in water(heat sink) Your issues are resolved... Even a/c condensers create heat because of the tight bends.. I've been on this post to much.. With that I bid all, A Happy New Year! Cheer's All..

 

Hollywood E.

Don't go just yet. I want to know what diameter tube you used. Seems like anything over 3/4" O.D. is hard to find and expensive. I don't mind spending the money but if 3/4 will do, I don't want to pay for 1".

 

Damn'it , h-hee, Gear head... What ever size tubing Your existing compressor is using is fine, You just need 50' of it(Un coiled), into a tank of water(heat sink) I know... No one wants anything else in the garage space... But a 55 gl. Barrel is optimum , Possibly a 30gl. , An You'll be fine...if you read back... Between the compressor head/tank line is what I'm referring to... Cheer's

 

I still can't figure out why guys will spend several hundred bucks on a dryer system because they are too frigging lazy to drain the damned compressor tank on a regular basis. This doesn't make a damned bit of sense.

 

If you think that draining the tank rids the air of moisture I bet it doesn't make any sense.

 

Granted it’s different for a compressor in a Home garage vs. a shop but really it’s good practice to control water either way.

Controlling water moister / humidity in the compressed air lines goes above just “not being lazy” and draining them everyday. In my shop we drain several times a day (plus use auto drains in areas as well). Just because your “visually” draining water out of your tank or lines doesn’t mean you have dry air. Dry air is crucially important for paint shops (such as myself)

So in addition to the easy task of draining them we:

~First incorporate an aftercooler (think a condenser with an electric fan blowing across the fins)
~After that we have another drain in the line to drain the condensed water vapor after the fan cools off the warm lines from the compressors.
~From there we go into a pair of filters to trap any particulates, oils or contaminations (these also have drains)
~Next we go into a refrigerated dryer (basically run the air through an A/C unit) this is a little further down from the compressors so it’s not dealing with hot air (again this has an auto drain)
~From there we are plumbed throughout the entire shop with “drops” in the air lines to physically give a low point drain in each station along with a last water separator/ water filter and drain.
~At the actual paint booth we have a pre drain followed by a 3 stage filter and desiccant system.

We have randomly moisture test at several points in the system and each of these systems do their part in reducing the humidity / moisture in the lines. For proper painting you shoot to be around or under 7-8%.

Attached are several generic pictures of the systems and an actual picture of the true reading of our moister in the spray booth (high moister will affect the paint in many ways....none for the good)

 

I have VERY limited space so this is what I went with. We dont paint off this compressor but can be using alot of air time with hand tools. Yes I spent a little bit on material and down time but if I drain on a regulat basis and add a couple features,I should be okay I hope.Its got to make somekind of difference.The tubes are on what Id say the coolest wall and are 3/4". I worked last night, went to a race shop open house during the whole day and am back at work now. I had just enough time the other day to test for leaks and will see if I get any water drained off Sunday.

 

Got some sleep and went back to it today.I drained the compressor tank and got about a quart out. Trouble is this time I got a oily white crap mix out. Sounds to me like there is some blow by and a rebuild is in order??? Never a dull moment.