Air compressor - water remover

[muddstir]

I was sandblasting awhile back and within 10 minutes I had nothing but issues due to water/ condensation in my air line.
So I looked at some air line dryers on the internet, but the cost of them were to much for me. Then I heard about this setup somewhere on the internet so I decided to make one.
Did about 30 minutes of blasting with it hooked up and had no issues.
If I remember correctly I have roughly 200 dollars tied up into it, and every thing was bought from a home improvement store.

So here is this contraption

[IMG][/IMG]

I bought 20ft of 3/8 id soft copper tube and coiled it by hand so it was no taller than a 5 gallon bucket and wide enough so it would fit in the bucket with plenty of room at all sides. Try not to kink it, the inlet will be on top of the coil and the outlet will come off of the bottom of the coil

[IMG][/IMG]

You see the coil copper tube fits in the bucket with plenty of room. The inlet end has the male end of an air line fitting on it so I can plug my line from the compressor right to it. the outlet end has a female end on it so I can plug another line from it to the water trap section. When you go to use the system you have to fill the five gallon bucket with water and ice.

[IMG][/IMG]

I used compression fittings on the copper tube, then had to buy reducers to get to the thread size if the air line parts.

[IMG][/IMG]

The air goes from the copper tube to the water remover tower thing.

[IMG][/IMG]

The air comes in on the lower inlet. The black iron pipe is 1 1/2 size, the Tee fitting is reduced down by a bunch of reducers to fit the air line thread size. Below the inlet on the black iron pipe is an elbow that's reduced down to a 3/4 ball valve and that's used to drain the water out of the pipe.

[IMG][/IMG]

The air comes out of the water remover tower thing on the upper tee fitting. Just plug an air line into it and then to your sandblaster or other tool.

[IMG][/IMG]


How it really works- When you use your air compressor for long periods of time the air being pumped gets really hot due to the pump on the compressor. By running the air through the coiled copper tube in a bucket of ice water your cooling the air temp really fast. Because the air temp went from hot to cold it creates condensation. The air pressure forces the condensation out of the copper line but when it enters the black pipe the water is heavier than the air it falls down and any leftover condensation should form on the walls of the black pipe till it collects together and runs down the pipe. Every so often open the ball valve and blast that water out.

I would have done my water trap a little different but they were all out of 10ft sticks of 1 1/2. I would have made it a little taller and put more room between the inlet and outlet on it. I would have used 2in too but the didn't have any reducers for that size also.