Quest for Dry Air, On the Cheap Options

[jmill]

I'll be painting sometime soon and recently there has been several timely paint related threads. In the Midwest we're plagued by humid weather and lots of water in our compressed air. I figured I'd share my project to rid myself of water so my paint job isn't ruined.

There are several high dollar units out there to separate water from the air but I'm cheap. I decided to design some piping meant to drop the water out of suspension. All you need is 25' or more of piping, some valves, fittings and good old gravity. I wanted to use copper but it would have cost me over $150 in materials. Going with PVC cost me $40.

I still need to finish the drain and inlet/outlet piping but you'll get the idea.

[jmill]

Be very careful!

If a PVC water pipe bursts under those pressures, no big deal, it causes a leak.

If a PVC pipe bursts under AIR PRESSURE, it can come completely apart and throw shards around the shop.
The difference is that water is incompressible while air is compressible.

You have a LOT more energy stored in a compressed air system than you have in a water system at the same pressure.

I would use that with caution and bleed it every time you are not using it.

Stu

That 3/4 piping is rated at over 400 psi of water. It's well within it's limits at 145 psi. It's true that air will have more volume for a given pressure.

Look at all of the shop air DIY kits out there. They are thin walled plastic pipe rated under 200 psi. I haven't heard of a catastrophic failure yet that threw plastic shards everwhere and hurt someone. Show me one of those and I'll re-think my setup.

[rick 918-S]

Be very careful!

If a PVC water pipe bursts under those pressures, no big deal, it causes a leak.

If a PVC pipe bursts under AIR PRESSURE, it can come completely apart and throw shards around the shop.
The difference is that water is incompressible while air is compressible.

You have a LOT more energy stored in a compressed air system than you have in a water system at the same pressure.

I would use that with caution and bleed it every time you are not using it.

Stu

That 3/4 piping is rated at over 400 psi of water. It's well within it's limits at 145 psi. It's true that air will have more volume for a given pressure.

Look at all of the shop air DIY kits out there. They are thin walled plastic pipe rated under 200 psi. I haven't heard of a catastrophic failure yet that threw plastic shards everwhere and hurt someone. Show me one of those and I'll re-think my setup.

Actually I had the same PVC in my shop with 6 guys working full tilt all day for 18 years. We had about 6 blow outs in that amount of time. Shards fly everyplace and shock the entire line sometimes causing a break down line. It's pretty safe but it can break.