any one familiar with this dryer,, looking for a unit for the garage air compressor,, lots of humidity in Indiana in the summer

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Eastwood ... veQ5fTools

Dessicant dryers (of that size at least) are really only good for point-of-use service and not for a whole shop air system. That one looks small and I would expect it to saturate quickly.

If you're going to buy Chinese stuff from Eastwood you might as well buy Chinese stuff at Harbor Freight which has a much larger, much cheaper desiccant dryer. http://www.harborfreight.com/desiccant- ... 97686.html

Or one of their filter regulators. http://www.harborfreight.com/air-tools/ ... 98904.html

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Joshua

years ago, to get dry air for painting a car,,, parked my truck next to the air compressor,, then ducted a short length of hose from the interior of the truck (had the engine idling and the AC on Max, windows shut...) to the air inlet on the air compressor,,, helped quite a bit,, made the small disposable inline dryers I had ahead of the paint gun last a long time.
I would like to have a real refrig unit,, but don't have the $$

Then build a passive dryer. Silver solder a network of good quality copper tubing that can be mounted to the garage wall and plumb your outgoing air through it. The hot air will leach the heat into the copper, and the extra surface will condense the moisture. If you also solder in a few drains at the low point(s), it can easily be plumbed with petcocks, or even a timer valve at a later date.

Roger

I became a bit obsessed when I bought my compressor and planned the air lines in my garage.

Need to know a few things first - what sort of size/cfm are we dealing with, and what are it's intended uses? Will you ever paint or use a plasma cutter?

The first step in moisture removing is cooling the air. "Aftercoolers" (aka the cheap man's refrigerated dryer) will get a majority of the moisture out. They are more efficient when plumbed between the compressor and the tank as that is where the air is the hottest. They will work if you plumb it after the tank, but just not as efficient and still leaves more water sitting at the bottom of your compressor tank. I've included a pic of the way I did mine. A B&M transmission cooler with some crazy output (something like 1000cfm) fan on it. After the compressor runs for more then a few seconds the input line to the cooler is way too hot to touch. The output line is at ambient even after a long run. The only time the output line rises above ambient is when it gets close into the tripple digits, and then its barely noticeable. There are other ways to do poor man aftercoolers - google "franzonator" or "franz water seperator". Roger's method works as well however it takes more space and more solder points.

If you're just using general shop tools, a DA, die grinder, air ratchet/gun then this should suffice. You of course still should have a coarse air filter and regulator as well.

If you are going to paint, plasma, sandblast or anything else ultra sensitive to moisture and contaminants you will need to go further even if you have used a refrigerated dryer. After your coarse filter (which gets down to what, 20ish microns?) you'll need a coalescing filter that gets even smaller, sub 1 micron level. A popular cheap choice for these are the motorguard toilet-paper style filters. There are also others that use various media such as fiber or other synthetic media cartridges.

THEN comes your desiccant as the final stage before the regulator to absorb any last bit of moisture left. Using desiccant without a cooler or coarse/coalescing filter, while it works, is a no-no because you will be changing out desiccant or recharging it a lot more often. Desiccant isn't cheap, especially when you have to buy it in special cartridges for your unit.

Yes, coalescing and desiccant filters are meant more for point of use rather then "whole shop" type filters. If you only have one outlet, or you have more then one outlet but only use one at a time, you will be fine putting your stage 2/3 filters at the compressor.

The picture I have included is old. I have since modified the setup. The after cooler part is the same. The coarse filter is a milton unit. Then comes the motorguard, then comes 3 of the harbor freight desiccant units already linked to above running in parallel. 3 in parallel to reduce flow restriction and also slow down the air so it spends more time passing through the desiccant. The harbor freight units are quite economical especially with the 20% coupons, however be prepared to work to get them to seal (Rectorseal no. 5 is good stuff, just give it time to set) and clean the film of oil on the insides. I also drilled the inlet/outlet holes a bit bigger - the threads were 3/4 pipe but the holes behind them leading to the main tube were smaller. Then another coarse filter (not needed if the desiccant unit you choose has a fine internal screen or uses cartridge bags) after the desiccant to trap any pellets that got loose. I'll have to take another pic that shows everything. The setup looks like crap but works awsome.

Thanks for the rundown, Pierre. That looks sweet.

Lou

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I would love to see some more pictures. Got to love the Quincy Compressors. I just bought a 5HP 17.2cfm@175 psi unit. Got free shipping too.
Frank

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For me it was all about flow. Excellent filtration but poor flow... whats the point of buying such a mondo compressor?

Frank, those are the specs of the unit I bought as well. Quincy model QT5, 80 gallon tank, 230v. I chose Quincy due to their reputation for reliability. 100% duty cycle rated pump, 50k hour pump life. This is the type of thing you hand down generation to generation.

Give me a day or two or three on the pics.

thanks, picked up lots of good ideas here,
running the HF dryers parallel is a great idea,

if I pick up a finned tranny cooler to use as a air to air cooler, wonder what the risk of rupture at 100 psi is?
of course I'll have to figure out how to add drains , so maybe the looped copper tubes is more workable.

thanks

time to add a few things to teh "want list" for when I go to farm auctions;

It is best to use the stacked plate type (ex B&M SuperCooler) instead of finned type (AC condenser or heater core) for better cooling efficiency as well as improved flow. Bursting should not be a problem as they are rated to 200psi and most likely even higher due to safety margins. The stacked plate types have higher pressure ratings as well I believe. I've also set the on/off switch to stop the compressor at 140-150ish psi as well to stress it less. Yes you loose a little tank capacity because of that but its not terribly significant and further improves pump life. Not really a huge deal though due to the quality of the pump... just my paranoia.

Either aftercooler you use, you must have drains. Infact, if you use copper loops you will have to have one drain at the bottom of each loop. If you didn't, the water you took out of the airstream stays in liquid form and ruins your stage 2/3 filtering.

Hard to see in my pic... do you see the large white rag hanging off the pipe? The rag is on the handle of the ball valve drain. That leg of pipe is there to hold the water that the cooler condenses while the rest of the air has to turn 90 degrees to get to the tank.

As mentioned silver solder is a must to withstand the pressure and also the heat esp. at the "input" line connection.

I actually see a couple driers on Feebay that I am looking into...... No, not the expensive ones.....

Refrigerated dryers bring the dew point of air down to mid-high 30's F. Desiccant goes to -40F.

For garage air volume refrigerated dryers are not necessary and just an added expense. Not to mention take space. The cheaper ones also use smaller pipe, 3/8 or 1/2 (such as this harborfreight unit) instead of 3/4. If your feeling frivolous or find a name brand unit for cheap, go for it. Yeah it says 21.6cfm but what will be the pressure loss across it? Otherwise you can DIY an after cooler + desiccant setup that flows more for about the same if not cheaper.

You could always use the copper baseboard radiators instead of an oil cooler.

Might even be cheaper, and since they're copper; you could solder them in.

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes