Quote:
Originally Posted by dhutton
Is there a drain after the intercooler? Not understanding where the 80% of the water goes.
Don
|
I built the setup shown below. A large transmission cooler, cooled by a 120v fan wire to one leg of the 240v so it comes on when the compressor does.
It orientated so the water runs down the tubes and exits with the compressed air, goes through two water separators, an iron "stand pipe" with drain and then into the tank, the main volume of the water is caught at these two separators. The air exits the tank and goes through a separator/filter, then regulator, then outlet for shop air, then a cartridge filter and exits for "painting air". That way I'm not always using the good filter cartridge for running just air tools.
Anything before the cooler is copper tube (not pipe) with flare fittings, after the cooler you can use anything that will hold the pressure because the air is room temp.
You still have to drain the tank, but it's usually just a mist instead of a stream, and I have manual drains on the separators, complex to explain but automatic drains don't work well on a system like this. I've never gotten a drop of water out of the after tank separator. Since the air going into the tank is pre-cooled it holds very little moisture, and passes pretty much no heat into the tank (warm air can hold more moisture). I think to get any dryer I'd have to install a high end desiccant filter or refrigerated dryer.
The whole unit, compressor, cooler, separators, filters and outlets are all a single unit on heavy duty casters than can be rolled out of the corner for servicing or sold as a unit when the time comes.
