What is a good water filter/separator for compressed air? Not looking to buy the cheap Home Depot/Menards crap, but don't want to spend a couple hundred either. I have 60 gallon compressor in my garage, mostly used for grinding, sanding, possibly some spraying later on.
I have two branches off my IR 60 gal 14 CFM compressor using the old Campbell/Hausfeld stuff since 2009. Has held up except for a couple of o-rings, but parts seem hard to come by now.
You won't get complete water separation from just a standard air Filter. In order to get really dry air, you will either need a refrigerated drier, a dessicant drier or a deliquesscent drier. The last one is least expensive but involves replacing dessicant every so often. Air compressors breathe in ambient air. When the weather is humid, they ingest a lot of moisture that is in the air. The outlet air from the compressor is hot, so it can hold a lot of moisture. On dry days or in low humidity climates, you can get by with just a filter, so long as you drain your tank frequently. Short answer is, there are many option but none of them are particularly easy or cheap. I have an old refrigerated drier that keeps my air pretty dry. If I had problems, I would see them in my blasting cabinet. If you're going to spray paint, you will need something more than a filter unless you live in a desert area.
I saw a guy make a refrigerated dryer from his beer refrigerator, he put a copper coil of air line in the refrigerator with a separator/ filter on the side and he had no more water in his air lines.
Make an after cooler for the air before it gets to the tank. I put a transmission cooler between the compressor head and the tank with a drip leg and mechanical auto drain for water separation. Then a regular water separator/air filter after the tank. It's crazy how well it works. Very very little water gets to the tank. You can also plumb a A/C condenser instead of a trans cooler.
Start with whatever separator you want... then put a filter in for your sensitive work https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mgc-m-60 Theres a lot to be said for designing your air lines too... copper vertical lines, moisture traps, runs with grade, and vertical taps into the trunk line, etc...
You need to cool the air after it comes out of the receiver tank and before any air/water separators. The separators can't work if the air is still warm and holding moisture in suspension. You can run a bunch of pipe along your wall to give the air enough time to cool. Be sure to do a run up and down with a drain at the bottom. Or you can build a cooler like I did. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ompressed-air-cooler-water-separator.1205576/ Or, I think, the cheapest quickest and simplest , Just hang a 50 foot coil of copper tubing from the ceiling. Compressed air into the top Drain at the bottom. T-fitting to the separators and then your equipment. Copper tubing cools the air, the moisture drops out of the air, the moisture drains down and collects at the bottom where it can be blown off with a valve. T-fitting up higher so the water can't follow. Cool the air first.
When my old compressor died I kept the tank and plumbed it in after the new tank for added volume and as a cool down tank, from there I ran copper pipe up the wall about eight feet and down, twice, with a ball valve at the bottom of each down pipe, then to a dryer before the hose connections. I bleed the system every month, primary tank, secondary tank, the two down pipe valves and the dryer. The largest amount of water comes from the primary, some from the secondary, mist from the two pipes and nothing from the drier. The air at the end of the hose is cool and dry. Only thing I would change would be larger diameter pipe, the half in
Here you can see the two tanks, the pipe running up and down the wall and the Sharpe 606A filter/dryer The rocker valve is for the air over hydraulic lift.
I have a two stage Husky 80 gal. unit that sits in a small parts storage room with my sand blaster. For some reason, I get very little moisture from the compressor; maybe it is due to the dry environment in that room. It is about 10 years old now. For FRL assemblies, I use the SMC products which are dominate in the high tech industries. No pipe thread to deal with and a lot of options if you are after such things. I have one port plate that provides non-lube air if I need it.
When I lived in town and didn’t have a lot of room, I did as @Rickybop did, got a roll of copper tubing and put a water separator at the end. My compressor at the time was an oil less, noisy Craftsman and they build heat Tank would be warm after it shut off. Every 4 or 5 compressor cycles I’d drain the collector.
A painter I know of, while he was getting started, coiled a hose in a 5 gal. bucket and filled it with cold water to cool the air down before it got to his separator. Gary
The first thing to know is that virtually any set up you install will be ineffective unless it's mounted AT LEAST 10 feet from the compressor. The simplest thing to do is get a copper tube coil and submerge it in a drum of water during that 10 feet so the air cools and condenses the water. Better yet is rerouting the air from the pump so it goes thru the chiller BEFORE it gets stored in the tank. Myself, I bought a second 80 gallon tank and a maze with about 80 feet of copper pipe before the air gets there. The air cools somewhat, enters the extra tank from the side. Water drops to the bottom of the tank and the air rises and exits the top of the tank and returns to the tank under the compressor pump. Then I put a low pressure line from that tank into the paint booth. I used large piping so I have lots of volume at low pressure.Then I bought an industrial filter/water separator with larger fittings . I believe it was less than a hundred dollars, but it might have been a little more.
We do lots of sand blasting and the Campbell Hausfeld "dryer" constantly atomized the dryer beads so after two or three warranty replacements on the failed units we went to a unit similar to this. It is mounted about 25 feet from the compressor, automatically spits water on a predetermined cycle (that I can set). Before adding this unit we'd have so much moisture in the system that it would condense at the nozzle and slow/stop the flow of abrasive. The air flows through a "radiator" with the fan blowing through the radiator to cool the air with the condensed water falling to the bottom and being spit out. Garage journal has several home made solutions that are cheaper than this one and the suggestion to cool the air before it gets to the tank is spot on.
It's pretty simple to tell if the air has cooled, and if it cooled, it gave up the moisture it contained,but even though it may be separated it also has to have a place to get away from the air. If not, the water will still come out of the hose with the air. Most people just put a small water separator in line and think it is doing the job. Usually it isn't. You don't need a refrigerant air drier to get the water out. They are nice if someone can afford one.
I had a noticeable moisture problem with my old craftsman 5hp compressor with the small tank. My new, to me, air compressor does not have an moisture problem. Very little moisture in the tank and none in the lines in the shops or running between them.
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I need my system dry enough to paint so I did this. Compressor to cooling tower (tower has a water trap), then to refrigerated dryer and then to the shop. For painting I have a desiccant chamber prior to my hose that feeds the gun. Overkill but really, really dry air.
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