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any ideas how to get moisture out of air lines from my compressor? I put a good sized canister and a reg. with a water trap on it, also have a auto air bleed on tank. the ac is a 65 gal vertical compreesor. I still get water coming into my air tools, any ideas? maybe a electric dryer from harbor freight?/

51dan79,

The key to removing the water from the air is to cool the air and allow the water to drop out. If you work your compressor hard, the air in the tank has no time to cool, and water is pulled into your air line in suspension and blown out your air tool.

If you can pull air for the compressor from a heated space it will be more dry. The easiest 'garage' method would be to run a adequate water trap (filter) in the line you are using followed by a desiccant filter. This will catch most of the water, provided the air isn't super hot.

Make sure you are drawing air from the top of the storage tank and make sure the tank is drained of water weekly.

A small, overworked compressor will pump hot air, which means 'wet' air. I haven't seen HF's dryer, but it is probably a fan cooled heat exchanger. If it is cheap enough, you might use it in conjunction with the filter and desiccant dryer.

You can also make a do-it-yourself heat exchanger out of a couple of runs of 1/2" black pipe. This is just a device to allow the air to cool before it reaches the tank. Good luck

Stuart

They do sell small refrigerated air dryers. Grainger used to have them, they are not real cheap though.

John

I agree with both atomarc and J Lucas on everything they have told you. We also pull air off of the top of our air line by using T's. Anything you can do will help. The more the compressor actually runs. the warmer the air, the more condensation and moisture being formed. Some jobs like running a DA, die grinders etc. take a lot of air if you are running them continuously. The only real solution is a bigger compressor (less run time) or some kind of air dryer, either desicant or refrigerated. Desicant is cheaper than refrigerated, but refrigerated is almost always the best for totally dry air. Check first and see how often your compressor is running, if very often, than refrigerated is probably your best bet. (but expensive)

Atomarc -

I am also having trouble with water coming out of the exhaust from my air tools.

How do you drain the water from the compressor?

Ross

Ross,

There should be a small drain valve located on the bottom of the tank. If there isn't a valve, there should be a small plug...maybe 1/4" and you can install your own valve.

Be sure to drain the compressor storage tank of air before you do any work on it.

Installing the drain valve probably will have no bearing on the water coming out of your air tools. That 'water' is moisture that has dropped out of the warm air as it cools and travels through the plumbing towards your impact wrench or DA sander.

You might buy a water trap and install it ahead of your air hose. These can be purchased reasonably at somewhere like Harbor Freight...they are called 'filters' and should be sized for 1/2" pipe..3/8" minimum.

The whole secret is to find some way to cool the air and then separate the water before it gets to your air hose. Good luck.

Stuart

I have seen people take there air line coming from the tank and run it in a zig zag pattern than put a water trap and go from there. I drain my tank every day and if I am going to paint or sand blast, something that you have to have dry air for.I drain both my tank and dryer before I start.

I have never heard of a refrigerated dryer. Does anyone have a link they can post? I take it they run off of electricty. Do they use freon or what makes them refrigerated?

Kenny B.

I have something slightly different I'm gong to try, however it may take a while to get around to it since I've got some other higher priority things. I had to replace the outside unit of our heat pump this winter and I had the HVAC guy leave me the old unit. I plan to re-plumb the condensing coils and use them for an air dryer. Looks like on the hot gas side a 1/2 in copper line branches out to 10-12 lines of 1/4 inch tubing. On the other side I can remove the asmaller liquid tubing and re-plumb it to the same 10-12 1/4 inch lines branched to a 1/2 inch pipe arrangement.

551st3800, check out Grainger or type in refrigerated air dryer on a google search and you will find allkinds of them. Just need to match up the size of dryer to the compresser's output in CFM.

Last weekend I bit-the-bullet and bought a refrigerated air dryer from Harbor Freight. With a 30% discount coupon, the price was right. Works with compressors up to 21 CFM; maximum pressure is 140 CFM.

Harbor Freight also has a variety of air filters and compressor automatic drain kits.

A stated above, your pipe-plumbing can be done in a design that causes a lot of moisture to condense before it reaches your filters/tools/sprayers. (look-at and read both pages - good information here)

tclederman,
The TP diagram; outstanding. One picture...

When I'm running enough air to overwhelm my drying system I take a big bucket and fill it with cold water, coil a long hose through it, and run the hose between the compressor and the air dryer. That helps condense the water out of the air and it comes out in the trap instead of the tool or paint gun. If you wanted a more permanent solution you could use an oil drum with a copper coil inside it.

Hey TC, how does the automatic drain work from HF? It looks like it is set to go off at 145 lbs. So if your compressor's high limit is set to 150 it will never shut down, and if it is set at 140 the auto-drain will never trip. I don't get it.
The auto drain we had at work had an electrical solinoid wired into the switch that opened it for a few seconds whenever the compressor shut down.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL