Gallery, Projects and General > How do I??

drying air BEFORE it goes into the compressor?

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howsitwork?:
Guys

how practical is it to dry air before the compressor ? Reason is I’ve just bought a 6 month old compressor ( the guy ,I am sure NEVER drained in in the time he had it, so there was a fair amount of rusty water in the tank. I have drained it, allowed to stand open but mus5 admit I’d like to sluice inside with isopropyl or something to ensure it’s dry.

Is there any practical way t9 dry the air before the compressor pressurises it? I know I should drain after every session. but sometimes forget and an nervous about a 50l tank at 150psi sitting there. OK it’s only 1 year old now but  avoidance of a problem always seems a good idea to me.

i do have water trap on output etc so no issues with tools in use.

all suggestions welcome provided they’re legal.

regards Ian

awemawson:
Fit a timed electric drainer. They cost peanuts on eBay and work really well

RussellT:
I used to worry about corrosion in the air tank as well.  Then someone told me (it might have been on here) that corrosion failures aren't normally catastrophic - there'll be a leaking pinhole well before the tank explodes.  I tried to find a definitive source for that and although I couldn't find a definitive source I couldn't find anything that contradicted it either.

I think getting the air dry enough to eliminate damp in the tank would be difficult and probably expensive.  It might be better to save your money and inspect the tank regularly and use the saved money for the next air tank.

Russell

John Rudd:
When I worked at the gas terminal, we had 3 big Bellis and Morcom compressors for site air.
The sets were served by 3 sets of air driers that were electrically regenerated.
No pre drying of inlet air.....Oh and we had air dewpoint meters checking how dry the air was prior to going to the receivers..-29 degress I think we aimed for..,

beeshed:
If you can dry it as it comes out why can't you dry it before it goes in? Is it because the compression has removed a lot - that is now in the tank so there is less to remove at the output?. If you pass the compressed air through a dryer into a balloon (as in weather balloon) then compressed it again with a second dry tank compressor would that work?
Not completely daft if you have it all inside and recover the heat from both compression and the motors.

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