bhays
Well-known member
I threw this together this week and it actually works great.
My compressor is housed in my shed, then the air lines runs partially underground and partially through the crawlspace of the house about 80 feet into the garage. Recently I moved my welding stuff and blast cabinet out to the shed.
I have always had a problem with water in my air due to the line running through the ground and cool crawlspace before it gets to the garage where I do most of the work. Last weekend I sanded on the '82 project for about six hours and drained one and a half 2 liter bottles from the trap in the garage and had water slinging all over me all day. I decided it was time to do something about it. I looked at the $369 dryer from HF and figured it might work, but thought I would invest about $80 in trying something I saw online. It works awesome.. sanded eight hours straight yesterday and not a drop of water.
Here we go. My shed has roof vents to let out heat.
I scored an aluminum oil cooler from eBay (brand new but someone cut two of the brackets off, so got it for under $40)
I mounted the oil cooler up below the roof vent, made a shroud from cardboard so that it drew air only from outside, then used a blower from an old inflatable Santa Clause that had a hole in it.
So I plumbed a line using copper tubing from the pump on the compressor to the oil cooler (tried poly here and it couldn't take the heat.. looked like holding a lighter under a soda straw and blowing a bubble).. then poly out of the oil cooler to the moisture trap (3/4" pipe) and out of the trap back to the tank on the compressor.
The trap after the cooler catches almost 100% of the moisture before it ever makes it to the tank.. I am way impressed with how well this is working.
My compressor is housed in my shed, then the air lines runs partially underground and partially through the crawlspace of the house about 80 feet into the garage. Recently I moved my welding stuff and blast cabinet out to the shed.
I have always had a problem with water in my air due to the line running through the ground and cool crawlspace before it gets to the garage where I do most of the work. Last weekend I sanded on the '82 project for about six hours and drained one and a half 2 liter bottles from the trap in the garage and had water slinging all over me all day. I decided it was time to do something about it. I looked at the $369 dryer from HF and figured it might work, but thought I would invest about $80 in trying something I saw online. It works awesome.. sanded eight hours straight yesterday and not a drop of water.
Here we go. My shed has roof vents to let out heat.
I scored an aluminum oil cooler from eBay (brand new but someone cut two of the brackets off, so got it for under $40)
I mounted the oil cooler up below the roof vent, made a shroud from cardboard so that it drew air only from outside, then used a blower from an old inflatable Santa Clause that had a hole in it.
So I plumbed a line using copper tubing from the pump on the compressor to the oil cooler (tried poly here and it couldn't take the heat.. looked like holding a lighter under a soda straw and blowing a bubble).. then poly out of the oil cooler to the moisture trap (3/4" pipe) and out of the trap back to the tank on the compressor.
The trap after the cooler catches almost 100% of the moisture before it ever makes it to the tank.. I am way impressed with how well this is working.
