My poor boy air dryer

[ColtDurr]

I built a 1/2'' copper poor mans air dryer this weekend to run infront of my 5 stage dessicant dryer. For a small setup its working great I have noticed a great difference. Built from seeing pictures off here.

[Scratch]

Haven't seen that before. Do you get a big difference in moisture from the first to the last drop?

[lockeyone]

I wish I had wall space
Way too much stuff in my garage for that. I did put in 4 single drops like that before my machine outlet.

[acourtjester]

What did that puppy cost you??

[ctgolfer1]

Hmmm....I thought I was the only one to build one of those
Last week. I could not get mine away from the compressor as far as I would have liked to. I have not cut anything significant since I installed it so I don't yet know if it will work or not.
It was fun to build, I think I spent about $150 at Home Depot, valves were costly.I did use the type L 1/2" pipe.
May be anel but I cleaned the copper up a little and clear coated it. Just like the looks of copper.

Good luck man, let's hope they work.

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[acourtjester]

I would not paint it as it may affect the thermal conductivity IMHO

[robertspark]

I have one similar to this but about 6 ft long in a U shape as a pre cooler to a 3-stage + membrane dryer on the end lowering the humidity+ air temperature before the membrane dryer improves it's performance

https://youtu.be/ZKrPT0_vSug

Run cold tap water though the outer jacket from a hose pipe on a slow trickle... cold water enters near the air outlet and discharges at the air intake side .... counterflow heat exchanger

on the outlet it has an air bottle that works a bit like a vortice dust extractor (rapid air pressure / velocity drop with a short section of copper gauze within the air pipeline to allow for water droplets to coagulate)

air cooled coils can only cool the air the to above air temperature.... water cooled is the same but obviously a bit lower.... you can add ice to the water too which will improve the cooling effect

no! don't paint it it will dull and tarnish fine but the radiant cooling impact will be minimal unless the air is very hot which you should do something else about

[acourtjester]

Rob the plumber has lost voice

[ColtDurr]

Haven't seen that before. Do you get a big difference in moisture from the first to the last drop?

I can noticeably without a doubt see a big difference in moisture, Ive only seen moisture on my first drop, never past the first drop yet which has me surprised, Also, you can feel the hot copper in the first drop go to cool by the last drop even my buddy was suprised at the extreme difference in temperature. I can shoot the temps with my temp gun if its of any use.

I originally found the idea online because I didnt wanna fork the big money for air dryer, I run this copper contraption directly infront of my 5 stage dessicant dryer and from there goes to motogaurd to tp filter. I had 0 I repeat 0 moisture signs on a beauty mirror I stole from the wife.

[ColtDurr]

What did that puppy cost you??

I built this 1/2 one for under 100 dollars at menards, Valves were the expensive part in my mind ( almost 9 dollars a piece. )

I think all I bought were the valves, 50' of copper, bag of 90s, bag of t's, bag of couplers and 2x 1/2'' female couplers for my ins. I found this idea off of youtube and hours of research online on ways to avoid buying big fancy shit. So far it seems to be good, Ofcourse I pressure tested it to 150 psi and soap watered everything with no leaks. Believe it or not, I have never soldered anything in my life. Been a combo welder in refineries for years maybe ill credit it to that but I was impressed with no leaks..

[ColtDurr]

Im actually surprised theres not much familiarity with this poor boy setup. They are all over the Facebook pages and so on, which is where I referenced my design. If anyone is super interested I could probably go more into depth on my build guide. Honestly though I built it with less than 100 dollars invested and maybe 2-3 hours of time, I didn't cut any corners thought and mirror finished cleaned all of my copper ends and fittings before flux and solder.

I have this setup going directly into a 5 stage MAX AIR DRY desiccant filter, where I mounted a fluid pressure gauge, Then from there it goes into a microguard TP filter. Im crossing my fingers for longer consumable life and dry air!!

[ColtDurr]

Hmmm....I thought I was the only one to build one of those
Last week. I could not get mine away from the compressor as far as I would have liked to. I have not cut anything significant since I installed it so I don't yet know if it will work or not.
It was fun to build, I think I spent about $150 at Home Depot, valves were costly.I did use the type L 1/2" pipe.
May be anel but I cleaned the copper up a little and clear coated it. Just like the looks of copper.

Good luck man, let's hope they work.

20190811_164008.jpg

20190809_133807.jpg

I would be concerned the paint would retard the cooling process and kind of defeat the purpose. Good luck to you though brother, I made sure all my ink from the copper was on the inside so I tried a little bit for cleanliness lol

[abmetal]

I made basically the same thing but I can't see a significant reduction in moisture. The difference may be that I plumbed the condenser BETWEEN the compressor and tank because I was wanting to reduce the amount of moisture going into the tank. I was going to mount a fan to help cool but I wanted to see how it was going to do before I did that. I've always thought that I pretty well had the moisture eliminated going to the plasma table because I have a number of traps, filters plumbed into approximately 100' of copper line but I recently found I was wrong. A friend had given me a small air dryer a couple of years ago and I just never used it because I thought it was too small to do the job. But about a month ago, just out of curiosity, I hooked it up and I really got surprised. After about 2-3 hours of cutting, the water trap on the air dryer had about 1" of water in it. So, needless to say, I left it hooked up.

Allen

[ColtDurr]

I made basically the same thing but I can't see a significant reduction in moisture. The difference may be that I plumbed the condenser BETWEEN the compressor and tank because I was wanting to reduce the amount of moisture going into the tank. I was going to mount a fan to help cool but I wanted to see how it was going to do before I did that. I've always thought that I pretty well had the moisture eliminated going to the plasma table because I have a number of traps, filters plumbed into approximately 100' of copper line but I recently found I was wrong. A friend had given me a small air dryer a couple of years ago and I just never used it because I thought it was too small to do the job. But about a month ago, just out of curiosity, I hooked it up and I really got surprised. After about 2-3 hours of cutting, the water trap on the air dryer had about 1" of water in it. So, needless to say, I left it hooked up.

Allen

Allen, when I drew up my plans I too thought about doing a mainline along the bottom with just one valve. My friend highly recommended not doing that because he said the air will go along the path if the least resistance, so what I took from him is that your air is traveling strictly along that bottom horizontal pipe and straight up while not letting the air condense and water settle in bottom. While operating I can crank my first valve and get moisture, 2nd valve none so far and so on. I think if you redesigned yours to force your air up and down your drops you would get better results. I can hold a mirror under my torch and not get any signs of moisture. I also have 4 ft of airhose going to a ball valve on the bottom drain of my air tank that I empty prior to operating that almost always has quite a bit if water

[abmetal]

The main line is 1" while the horizontal drain line is 1/2". Wouldn't the path of least resistance be flowing through the 1"? I've felt of the pipes during use and naturally the first two are going to be the hottest and after a couple of hours of run time the last one is just what I'd call about room temp.
The horizontal drain line has never been hot. Thoughts?

I remember a post of Jim Colt's where he mentioned using a mirror for testing for moisture in a compressed air line so I'd tried that a couple of times in the past and it showed no moisture but when I recently plugged in the small air dryer it collected what I'd call a considerable amount for the time spent cutting.

We've been running a plasma table for 13 years and the life of the consumables has really been good, other than my occasional screw ups, but after using the small air dryer I sometime wonder if we could be doing a little better.

Allen

[ColtDurr]

I honestly dont know the answer to that, I tell you what though, if it's working dont fix it ha. You have far more time and experience than I do in this realm of things obviously. I dont know why my buddy told me not to other than he told me not to lol. I just feel better seeing moisture in my first drop and none in the others, which makes me think its doing its job. My "rig" is at the farthest point from my compressor and goes directly into my other air drying goodies and 3 ft of hose into my cutter. I was also told the verticals needed to be atleast 5 foot to make it work good. Who knows lol

[robertspark]

the link at the bottom should be broken... although if you had / maintained a waterseal it would probably be fine because it will force the air via the longer route

[robertspark]

. The difference may be that I plumbed the condenser BETWEEN the compressor and tank because I was wanting to reduce the amount of moisture going into the tank

ok this won't help your moisture extraction.....

the key element to remove moisture from air is that the air needs to be cooled to below dewpoint of the air..... the air out of the compressor will be hot..... IE you need to first cool it to below dewpoint before the moisture can drop out of it... the receiver (tank) .... acts as a buffer and allows air to mix so it lowers the temperature of the outgoing air from the receiver .... the coil then has less work to do to cool the air below dewpoint

[ColtDurr]

. The difference may be that I plumbed the condenser BETWEEN the compressor and tank because I was wanting to reduce the amount of moisture going into the tank

ok this won't help your moisture extraction.....

the key element to remove moisture from air is that the air needs to be cooled to below dewpoint of the air..... the air out of the compressor will be hot..... IE you need to first cool it to below dewpoint before the moisture can drop out of it... the receiver (tank) .... acts as a buffer and allows air to mix so it lowers the temperature of the outgoing air from the receiver .... the coil then has less work to do to cool the air below dewpoint

Thats the big difference between his and I's

[Rodw]

. The difference may be that I plumbed the condenser BETWEEN the compressor and tank because I was wanting to reduce the amount of moisture going into the tank

ok this won't help your moisture extraction.....

the key element to remove moisture from air is that the air needs to be cooled to below dewpoint of the air..... the air out of the compressor will be hot..... IE you need to first cool it to below dewpoint before the moisture can drop out of it... the receiver (tank) .... acts as a buffer and allows air to mix so it lowers the temperature of the outgoing air from the receiver .... the coil then has less work to do to cool the air below dewpoint

I don't agree with this. If you were to go to a paint shop or a sand blaster they would cool the air through a condensor (or aftercooler) before it enters a storage tank. Then it would go through a refrigerated drier. The purpose of the condensor is to remove some water before it hits the tank and pull the air down to near room temp so the refrigerated drier is running within its design parameters. If the drier has hot inlet air, it might not be able to cool the air down to the dew point and thus won't have completely dry air on the outlet side. A small 12" x 12" or so heat exchanger (think car oil cooler) is highly effective in cooling air entering the air tank if it is mounted betweenthe compressor and the tank so that the compressor pulley fan draws air through it. In the past some commercial air compressors included the heat exchanger like this. I have done this in conjunction with a refrigerated drier and I've never had water issues again. I don't know about drier climates but I learnt the hard way you cannot run a plasma cutter without a refrigerated drier.

Here is an example:

https://www.mediablast.com/compressed-air-basics

[robertspark]

rod you don't have to agree with it. it is part of my day job dealing with psychometric charts

using the copper loop as an aftercooler does not serve as an ambient air dryer which is what the conversation was about

the posters don't have or cannot afford a refrigerated dryer