Refrigerated Air Dryer Maintenance?

[urbnsr]

Shop floor space is at premium these days. we are considering adding an air dryer, but then comes the part about where to install it.

I'm wondering what kind of on-going maintenance you are doing with yours as I would like to build a shelf strong enough to place the ~77ibs unit above the compressor. If it's not on the floor, will I be able to service it?

Also - about how many amps do these units draw?

Thanks...
Paul

[_Ogre]

even in our 10,000 sq ft shop space is at a premium, we have the air dryer bolted to the wall above the compressor
the only maintenance we've done to ours in 10 years is to remove the sheet metal and blow out the coils one a year
found this out the hard way when we called a hvac guy to check why the discharge pressure was too low

as for amps? 2 to 100? depending on what unit you have
check the data plate or the manual for watts or amps
ours is on the same 20 amp circuit as the chop saw and stereo and never tripped

this is our sound enclosure for the compressor, the dry is above on the wall

[urbnsr]

Thanks Orge. As far as amperage, I was looking at the unit available via Plasmaspider.

Do you have any overheating issues with the compressor enclosed?

[whiskeymike]

The harbor freight one is pretty light and could definitely put it above. Maintenance is basically making sure the drain is actually draining and cleaning it occasionally. I used rubber hoses for that portion of the hook up, so I can I move it down or around pretty easy.

[msc]

I built a rack and installed a Harbor Freight air dryer on a rack near the ceiling to keep it out of the way.

I have had it for two weeks in humid south Florida and it has not auto drained once. I took the drain canister off today and there was maybe 2 ounces. I am not getting any noticble moisture out of the drains downline but, but I had very little before. How do you know if it is working? It cycles and the fan blows but shouldn't it be pouring out at least some water?

[whiskeymike]

Yes, you should be seeing water come out. As I remember with mine, I didn't see much when I first started, but then it started coming out pretty good after a couple weeks. One of the few complaints of these that i've seen is that the autodrain doesn't work and the water builds up in the trap. Once cleaned the autodrain started working. I think one guy took out the autodrain and instead plumbed a ball valve and hose to empty manually. There are several threads on garagejournal about it. Although there hasn't been enough pictures yet for me to dig into it.