Thread: Compressed Air Feedline For Workshop?

This is what I'm getting:
https://sydneytools.com.au/product/c...ine-master-kit

For drying and scrubbing the air, this is all you need: Phase 3 Air Filter | Amaxi

The Amaxi Phase 3 is used and sold by Iwata as well. It is a professional cleaner that will ensure your lines are 100% free of oil, water and bits. It is absolutely first class.

Unbelievably, it uses just two toilet rolls. They are swapped out about once a month. I've personally found the Kleenex Ripple style rolls are absolutely the best ($19 for 45 rolls: https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B07C3Y2C4V)

Its cheap, 100% effective and 100% reliable.

Curious, is it ok to just use the flexible air hose and tie it to the wall? and just use Y connectors where needed?

Originally Posted by woodPixel

For drying and scrubbing the air, this is all you need: Phase 3 Air Filter | Amaxi

The Amaxi Phase 3 is used and sold by Iwata as well. It is a professional cleaner that will ensure your lines are 100% free of oil, water and bits. It is absolutely first class.

Unbelievably, it uses just two toilet rolls. They are swapped out about once a month. I've personally found the Kleenex Ripple style rolls are absolutely the best ($19 for 45 rolls: https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B07C3Y2C4V)

Its cheap, 100% effective and 100% reliable.

An old fridge is cheaper and it keeps the beer cold. Use an old LPG cylinder for the bottle and it could be done for whatever the fridge cost, generally nothing for old ones.

If I was putting in a system today it would be in plastic, copper is a pain to install and the new fittings the pllastic systems use are just about bullet proof as far as leakage goes.

It is a pity that the plastic kit linked above is only 1/2" as it looks like excellent value. Running air tools off 1/2" is an exercise in frustration if done often.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

... Use an old LPG cylinder for the bottle.

Would you fill the bottle with drying medium?

This sounds like a good method for bulk storage of air.

I spray a lot and even though it's a good compressor, more stored air wouldn't go astray.....

Originally Posted by qwertyu

Curious, is it ok to just use the flexible air hose and tie it to the wall? and just use Y connectors where needed?

Every dip in the hose will act as a water trap and will release the water suddenly, overpowering any air dryers and wetting your work, usually with a water/oil mixture.

All air take-offs should come out of the top of the feed pipe so that if any water is traveling along the pipe it misses the take-off for the same reason.

The feed pipe should slope down hill so that water drains to the end where it can be bled off harmlessly.

No, drill and tap a drain into it and lead it out through a hole drilled into the fridge wall so there is no need to open the door to drain the tank. A small beer fridge would be ideal but may restrict how many beers it would hold.

The claim is that the 1/2" ID hose in the kit will deliver 60CFM over 6m at 150PSI starting pressure. For this to happen the pressure drop over the 6m will thus be ~35 psi so the working pressure at the end of the hose will be @ 115 psi. This does not appear unreasonable. There will be some further loses if too many elbows and T's are used but in general I'd say that is more than enough to drive most air tools provided your compressor has the grunt.

Interestingly if the pipe size is reduced to just 0.45", ie by just 0.05" the pressure loss is almost half the original 150 psi.

For a more realistic compressor eg 120 psi and 12 CFM, the pressure loss at the end of a 6m length of 1/2" IS hose will be about 2psi. Should be no worries.
1/4" hose on the same setup - forget it - you will lose >60% of the starting pressure - what happens in reality of course is the flow drops dramatically.
1/2" galv pipe is actually 0.625" ID. On my setup, ie 135 psi and 12 CFM, the pressure loss at the end of a 6m length is ~1/2 psi.

A few years ago I visited a high school woodworking classroom where 8 WW benches were each provided with about 3m of 1/2" ID air hose so that a range of WW air tools could be used. The room air was reticulated via a 25 mm blue line hose connected to a 54CFM/145 psi compressor with a 250L tank and a full flow refrigerated drier. Even though it all worked fine, depressingly the teacher that set it up was moved to another school a year later and the new teacher was not interested in the students using the air tools.

Most failures of compressed air systems to drive air tools usually relate more to the inability of the compressor to deliver the necessary continuous CFM , and the understatement by the manufacturer of the CFM requirements of the air tool, rather than the hose diameter.

I'm not convinced about using an old fridge
a) they take up space
b) Many chew a lot of power if left on and if not
c) I'd hate to be waiting around for the the darn thing to cool down just because I want to blow down a machine.

Question for the OP - what are the specific specs of your compressor and air tools?

Originally Posted by BobL

The claim is that the 1/2" ID hose in the kit will deliver 60CFM over 6m at 150PSI starting pressure. For this to happen the pressure drop over the 6m will thus be ~35 psi so the working pressure at the end of the hose will be @ 115 psi. This does not appear unreasonable. There will be some further loses if too many elbows and T's are used but in general I'd say that is more than enough to drive most air tools provided your compressor has the grunt.

Interestingly if the pipe size is reduced to just 0.45", ie by just 0.05" the pressure loss is almost half the original 150 psi.

For a more realistic compressor eg 120 psi and 12 CFM, the pressure loss at the end of a 6m length of 1/2" IS hose will be about 2psi. Should be no worries.
1/4" hose on the same setup - forget it - you will lose >60% of the starting pressure - what happens in reality of course is the flow drops dramatically.
1/2" galv pipe is actually 0.625" ID. On my setup, ie 135 psi and 12 CFM, the pressure loss at the end of a 6m length is ~1/2 psi.

A few years ago I visited a high school woodworking classroom where 8 WW benches were each provided with about 3m of 1/2" ID air hose so that a range of WW air tools could be used. The room air was reticulated via a 25 mm blue line hose connected to a 54CFM/145 psi compressor with a 250L tank and a full flow refrigerated drier. Even though it all worked fine, depressingly the teacher that set it up was moved to another school a year later and the new teacher was not interested in the students using the air tools.

Most failures of compressed air systems to drive air tools usually relate more to the inability of the compressor to deliver the necessary continuous CFM , and the understatement by the manufacturer of the CFM requirements of the air tool, rather than the hose diameter.

I'm not convinced about using an old fridge
a) they take up space
b) Many chew a lot of power if left on and if not
c) I'd hate to be waiting around for the the darn thing to cool down just because I want to blow down a machine.

Question for the OP - what are the specific specs of your compressor and air tools?

Bob, we routinely ran 1/2" drive impact guns here and 1/2" will not supply themat anywhere near full torque on the gun and my Titanium CP gun will just laugh at it. My die grinder just simply slows down on anything less than 3/4" main supply so your figures say one thing I guess but my on the job experience says another. BTW a 20CFM compressor is supplying the system. That you don't like the fridge idea surprises me not one bit.

Another dehumidification technique I've seen, if you are handy, is to run a series of copper pipes next to each other up/down/up/down/up/down with valves at the bottom (mostly 3 valves). Its about 1 metre per run. It used ordinary copper pipe (whichever size feels good to your need).

It is affixed to the wall.

The idea is that the compressed air exiting the compressor has to go through this airport-like-security-lineup and run a considerable way. The moisture condenses on the pipes, running to the bottom, to be released occasionally via the valves manually. The final run has a slope to force moisture back towards this contraption.

Let me see if I can find a picture. It apparently works quite well. A lot of airbrush dudes use it.

All that is doing is to lengthen the supply run to give the air time to cool down and the moisture condense out. Just adding an extra 6 meters to the run won't have much of an effect if you are using a lot of air on small tubing but it will drop your pressure a bit. Having a proper water trap and pressure regulator at the end of a long run, and your piping sized and sloped correctly, should solve all of the water contamination issues.

If the air is coming out hot, as it expands, it will cool and this will condense any water vapour that is left in the air depositing it on your job.

In an industrial application when we couldn't risk water contamination a large air radiator with fan cooling was installed immediatly after the compressor to cool the air so that the water traps would work properly.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Let me see if I can find a picture. It apparently works quite well. I lot of airbrush dudes use it.

Airbrushes don't use a lot of air and as they usually work close to the compressor this will help them a lot to cool the air.

Air speed carries water, the bigger the line the lower the air speed. The gotcha scenario in every air system is the fittings that get used in connections to tools, air reels etc as the nominal internal bore is way smaller than the hose or supply line size. Some hose reels with 3/8th hose have 1/4" fittings into the reel which kills air flow. Any connection fitting to a tool has a much smaller ID than the hose.