Air Flow Problems

[KMWren]

I am running a 60 gal Husky Air Compressor to a Harbor Freight Air Cooler. The Air Cooler goes to a 3/8 in Desiccant dryer with oil filter. This goes into the Powermax 85. I have a pressure gauge at the inlet of the hypertherm to tell me the pressure as it goes into the hypertherm. It will cut fine for a few sheets of metal then the pressure will fall and i will get 0-22 or 0-12 errors.

I have tried turning up the cut on/off of the air compressor, but the air cooler can't take too much pressure. We recently replaced the hose from the desiccant and oil filter to the hypertherm with a bigger hose to provide more air flow. this worked for a bit but we cant get consistent pressure to cut for very long.

any help?

[sonbakler]

What does your pressure gauge read at the inlet of the PM85 when the 0-22 appears? If your holding 90 PSI or better than should be good and I would check and clean the filter at the back of the PM85, I had mine plug up with dessicant dust in the past.

[KMWren]

What does your pressure gauge read at the inlet of the PM85 when the 0-22 appears? If your holding 90 PSI or better than should be good and I would check and clean the filter at the back of the PM85, I had mine plug up with dessicant dust in the past.

it drops down to below 80 when i get the 0-22. I've just cleaned all my filters on every piece of equipment i listed less than 1 week ago.

[WyoGreen]

I wonder if you are having a freezing problem in your air dryer? I did a bit of reading on the Harbor Freight air dryer, and found this:

"These dryers work very well when you have the PSI of the refrigeration set to about 35-37PSI . You adjust it by small adjustments of the large allen screw (on the orifice tube???) just above the condenser while observing the gauge on the front of the dryer. My first dryer was set too low causing the moisture inside to freeze up where it would block air flow through the air lines.The specs and price of this dryer make it an attractive option for many applications such as precision equipment, painting, sandblasting etc.."

[Rodw]

What is the free air delivery from your air compressor? Clearly its unable to keep up with the required airflow. It needs to be about 50% larger than what your plasma cutter requires.

Does the Hypertherm have a internal air filter like my Thermal Dynamics? Is it blocked?

If you have a refrigerated drier, you might also consider removing the desiccant drier from the loop. If your drier is any good, its not required.

[plasmanewbie]

My dessicant dryer has a filter element that helps prevent dessicant dust from exiting the dryer. Its a cintered bronze filter and it has plugged up on me before and caused this problem. I was unable to clean it, the pores were all plugged so i replaced it and problem solved.