Compressor Air Dryer

[milomilo]

Who here has a good design for an air dryer. Rather make one than buy one. Long term plan is to get a plasma cutter. My use would be a couple times a week for an hour at most each use.

[Windy_Acres]

My design worked out pretty well,... Here was my design,... I patiently watched until one turned up on craigslist and then hustled my butt over there to buy it.

Came with an air to air aftercooler as well, and I paid a small fraction of new.

[Walker]

Here is one. http://www.shopfloortalk.com/forums/...read.php?t=481

There should be more on the tips and tricks page.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Windy_Acres

My design worked out pretty well,... Here was my design,... I patiently watched until one turned up on craigslist and then hustled my butt over there to buy it.

Came with an air to air aftercooler as well, and I paid a small fraction of new.

I think yours is partly the design I am looking at. I would prefer to use the condenser design rather than desiccant design.

Originally Posted by Walker

Here is one. http://www.shopfloortalk.com/forums/...read.php?t=481

There should be more on the tips and tricks page.

I looked there too and found some info I needed. Maybe someone here can chime in with some design info.

[dpaulson]

My compressor has a dryer built in. By the time the dryer cooled enough to start to remove moisture, the compressor was filled and the cycle finished and |I would still have moisture in the system. I installed an aux 100gal tank, to get longer cycle times, which helped considerably, but you should not rely on just one water removal system.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by dpaulson

My compressor has a dryer built in. By the time the dryer cooled enough to start to remove moisture, the compressor was filled and the cycle finished and |I would still have moisture in the system. I installed an aux 100gal tank, to get longer cycle times, which helped considerably, but you should not rely on just one water removal system.

My tank is 220 gallons. The compressor does not start often but runs for awhile before the tank is filled. We have a very dry climate here too.

[Ironman]

Our member Terry L has a condenser/dryer made out of a large evaporator rad from an AC system. He has a fan on the motor pulley which draws air though this system when the compressor runs, and cools the air to the dew point by the time it is discharged into the reservoir tank. He says it gives always dry air, and his country is soggy.
I have used a desiccant dryer which is simply a 30" section of 2 inch pipe filled with silica gel beads. I further clean the air with a toilet paper filter before the plasma. I can run a year or so and check the pellets and they have only about 1/8" turned blue. My condenser is a large receiver and 60 ft of 3/4 iron pipe. I live in dry country.
But I like Terry's idea.
I think it is important to K.I.S.S on air dryers, unless you have a large demand for filtered dry air like for a hospital or a commercial cutting table. You can spend way too much money for this to feed a little 45 amp plasma cutter.
An electric autobleeder will be a better choice to spend money on. For a couple hours a week, you may be better to use a nitrogen bottle instead of air, depends on your bottle costs.

Heck Chris, you've seen my dryer, didn't you? Way too simple to build. like this picture.

[digr]

I drew one up years ago using desiccant. It would be a pain to fill, but you could use pipe and pipe caps instead of the bolts.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Ironman

Our member Terry L has a condenser/dryer made out of a large evaporator rad from an AC system. He has a fan on the motor pulley which draws air though this system when the compressor runs, and cools the air to the dew point by the time it is discharged into the reservoir tank. He says it gives always dry air, and his country is soggy.
I have used a desiccant dryer which is simply a 30" section of 2 inch pipe filled with silica gel beads. I further clean the air with a toilet paper filter before the plasma. I can run a year or so and check the pellets and they have only about 1/8" turned blue. My condenser is a large receiver and 60 ft of 3/4 iron pipe. I live in dry country.
But I like Terry's idea.
I think it is important to K.I.S.S on air dryers, unless you have a large demand for filtered dry air like for a hospital or a commercial cutting table. You can spend way too much money for this to feed a little 45 amp plasma cutter.
An electric autobleeder will be a better choice to spend money on. For a couple hours a week, you may be better to use a nitrogen bottle instead of air, depends on your bottle costs.

Heck Chris, you've seen my dryer, didn't you? Way too simple to build. like this picture.

I did not see your dryer. I do remember you having some air issues using the plasma when I was there, but I did not get close enough to see the dryer.

[terry lingle]

What Gerry describes is the first stage of my dryer.
The cooled air is directed through the check valve into a vertical column separator made from 4 ft of 5x5 HSS with a vertical divider that splits the top three feet into two triangular sections.
The cooled air enters at the top on side A loses velocity as it enters which helps coalesce the water vapor into droplets.
The droplets hit the divider which is slightly cooled by the air flowing through the separator and up the back side to exit at the top rear of side B.
The liquid water collects in the bottom and is drained manually every few days.

My primary storage tank is a 60 gallon propane tank mounted high in my compressor room.
The air enters on the bottom of the tank through a line that slopes back to the separator so no water collects in the tank.
This system has been in use for 30 + years and only once have I seen moisture in my air system. That happened when I was sandblasting a machine.
The compressor was running continuously and simply overwhelmed the dryer.