Shop compressor air dryer for DIY resto projects

I have about 30' of 1/2" galvanaized pipe from ththe tank to the point where I will be pulling air from for paint. Take a look at my pictures. Right now the black 1/2" hose goes from my air line (segregated from the rest of the shop supply with the shut off valve) to my m60 filter where I will plug my new airline in for painting. I'm going to remove the 1/2" barb out of the tee (red circle), put a 5/8 JIC (-10AN) fitting in it, run hose long enough to set the dryer on the floor close to the pillar the m60 is on, run the 5/8" hose to the drier, and run a 5/8" hose out the dryer to the m60. The hoses will have push lock fittings on them, so I can unhook the hoses and store the dryer when not in use. Someday maybe I'll make an overhead shelf to store it on like arrowhead did, but right now I will only be using it for my car, and don't want to hardline it or make the shed. The Parker and eaton hose is nice anyway.

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Have you ever heard of a frazinator? I built one on my Ingersol and I rarely have water in the tank. This is in NC where high humidity is an every day thing. I'm not really an auto body guy but I do have a past of 12 years in auto repair from general auto to big diesel to some racing stuff. So have been around air compressors but not in need of "clean" air like auto body requires. I didn't want to spend a lot of money and I heard a lot of good things about this device. Cost me about 100 bucks in plumbing and works great! I can take a few pics if your interested.
Best.
 
I have heard of it and seen pictures on he internet. As of now I'm just going to rely on the m60 and the HF dryer. If yo don't mind, could you post some pics of your setup?

I doubt I'll buy anything new though. I bought over $100 in plumbing stuff and had the HF dryer plumbed in near the tank only to not use it.
 
the hf dryer work good. i'm getting no moisture in my booth .[/QUOTE]


I was gonna get the QC3 for my garage but..which one you got from HF shine..
 
the 400 dollar refrigerated dryer. 20 ft from compressor , 60 ft from booth .
still have these in my booth. have yet to see any moisture in them .
 

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I've had mine for about a year, used daily and still producing dry air. Only complaint I have is the automatic float style drain that comes with it is garbage. for now I just have a length of pipe and a ball valve in place of it, but getting ready to put an electric automatic drain on.
 
So here is an image of the setup. Plumbing is 1/2 copper. The tube coming out of the compressor head gets Very hot. You can follow the tubing across and into the vertical cast-iron pipe. There is a downturn inside the pipe so the air gets forced downwards. As the air rises inside the cast-iron pipe it cools so the humidity drops out of the air, comes out the top and routes into the top of the air tank. This pipe can be held without needing to take your hand away. So the heat dissipation that happens in the cast iron is very good. You can see there are 2 water separators after the pressure switch. The small one has been emptied once. Maybe a teaspoon of water if i run the compressor all day. The larger separator has never had water build up in it. The tank itself gets emptied maybe once every 6 months and i might get a dixie cup of water out of it. As for the cast iron pipe, i have to empty that at the end f each day that I run it.
This is not a design i came up with but I can honestly say i never get water coming out of any of my air tools since I set this up. I am very impressed with the way this works. Im in NC and the humidity is quite high so i could say this is an honest test of how this works.
All the best.
march11934
 

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Any thoughts of cooling/drying the air prior to intake of the compressor, like through a old refrigerator. I made a aftercooler of 3/4 copper pipe 18" runs back and forth about 20 ft all together before the check valve into the tank. Lowers the temp considerably. Also the aftercooler is mounted on the cage covering the pulleys where air is sucked in to cool the compressor.
 
all the refrigerated driers are trying to do is get the temperature below dew point, not really ice cold. That is why I would stay away from that ice bucket challenge, you could end up condensating the hot air inside the tubing and cause even more water. There are plenty of refrigerated air driers on ebay, I have a big one I paid 150 for that is by the powdercoat booth, then a good IR one that was a scratch and dent deal. I still put an oil filter and dessicant beads in line since they do nothing for oil.

Do you still have the check valve from the compressor into the tank? The main reason air compressors get extra hot is they are recompressing the same air, so its not leaving quick enough or the reed valves are flapping open. That check valve is usually the first place to look to see if you can get some temp down.
 
all the refrigerated driers are trying to do is get the temperature below dew point, not really ice cold. That is why I would stay away from that ice bucket challenge, you could end up condensating the hot air inside the tubing and cause even more water. There are plenty of refrigerated air driers on ebay, I have a big one I paid 150 for that is by the powdercoat booth, then a good IR one that was a scratch and dent deal. I still put an oil filter and dessicant beads in line since they do nothing for oil.

Do you still have the check valve from the compressor into the tank? The main reason air compressors get extra hot is they are recompressing the same air, so its not leaving quick enough or the reed valves are flapping open. That check valve is usually the first place to look to see if you can get some temp down.

On my cooler i have a low point where all the condensation will drain in a seperate 3 foot of 3/4 pipe where I have a 1/4 turn valve to bleed the water. I would figure inside the refrigerator the air would be dryer to start before its compressed..
 
This was posted in another thread started strictly for my compressor install. I changed things up quite a bit though. Here's what I have. See the attached pics. I'm quite happy with the setup. I haven't painted anything yet, and I haven't used the HF drier yet either. You can see it's ready to go though. I have it on a switch. Then a valve, flip a switch, and it's ready to go. With the after cooler that I installed off the compressor head I have yet to see a single drop of water at one of my tools when grinding or doing other such work. It's really, really nice. I think an after cooler like the one I have pictured made from some copper solves a lot of the problems I see mentioned here. Again, I haven't painted with it yet, but there is a huge difference with water collection. Never a drop at tools or in the line drops either. I have a separate leg that feeds the m60 filter. The big thing inline right upstream of it is a 125psi relief valve so I never grenade the m60 and kill someone or myself if there is a pressure spike or someone leaves the reg set high for the whole system.
 

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