kf4zht
Well-known member
Ok, moving into the new shop at a friend house, not my own, but he is a good guy and is giving me a place to live and tinker cheap.
I finally broke down and bought a compressor, a 60 gal 3.5hp from HF, it was around 305 on sale + 20% with a 1 year warranty add on. It has a single 1/2 npt outlet, and the pump appears to be US made (ABAC B3800). This past weekend I got power run to it, ran a subpanel for the room and a service disconnect. Fired it up and I am impressed. It went from 0-125 psi in around 4 minutes, you can stand next to it and talk and has stayed pressurized at 100 PSI for over a day without noticeable loss. It is already 10x better than any crapsman or other oil-less at that price range.
Now I need to set up some kind of air filtering/regulation and distribution. For distribution the best/least expensive seems to be to run type L copper, I was going to use 1/2 or 3/4" it will run down the back of a larger 2 car garage and shop space that is around a 1 car dimensions. It will have 2 drops in the shop, either end, 3 on the back of the garage area and 1 in the middle for a reel.
Now I am stuck with how to get the air dry, clean and regulated down to around 90-100 PSI. I will be running the normal shop stuff (impact, air hammer, cut off, die grinder, sander, etc) a plasma cutter, occasional painting and sandblasting.
I want clean, dry air as much as possible and I would prefer not to have any bottlenecks in the system. I am already used to manually oiling tools, so I don't really need and oiler, plus I know it would interfere with the plasma, painting and sandblasting.
I was originally looking at: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=98904
I like that it is just a filter/regulator, don't like that it is 1/2" in, but only 1/4" out. This to me falls under the "bottle neck" category. I was considering 2 of them, but at $60 for the pair that adds up.
The second option is something like: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92261
I don't like the oiler, but I can just not add any oil to it, not sure what size the inlet/outlet is. Even for a pair it is $20 cheaper
The next option is something like: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=97686
It would probably net very dry air, however I have to buy replacement media (can it be oven dried?) and I don't know how it would do at filtering particles and I would need a regulator
This could be combined with running something like: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=94346
At each of the outlets, but I will have to maintain all of them
There is also the "toilet paper" motorguard filter, but it is fairly expensive. and I will have to run a seperate regulator
So who has what, what is the best and what did I miss?
I finally broke down and bought a compressor, a 60 gal 3.5hp from HF, it was around 305 on sale + 20% with a 1 year warranty add on. It has a single 1/2 npt outlet, and the pump appears to be US made (ABAC B3800). This past weekend I got power run to it, ran a subpanel for the room and a service disconnect. Fired it up and I am impressed. It went from 0-125 psi in around 4 minutes, you can stand next to it and talk and has stayed pressurized at 100 PSI for over a day without noticeable loss. It is already 10x better than any crapsman or other oil-less at that price range.
Now I need to set up some kind of air filtering/regulation and distribution. For distribution the best/least expensive seems to be to run type L copper, I was going to use 1/2 or 3/4" it will run down the back of a larger 2 car garage and shop space that is around a 1 car dimensions. It will have 2 drops in the shop, either end, 3 on the back of the garage area and 1 in the middle for a reel.
Now I am stuck with how to get the air dry, clean and regulated down to around 90-100 PSI. I will be running the normal shop stuff (impact, air hammer, cut off, die grinder, sander, etc) a plasma cutter, occasional painting and sandblasting.
I want clean, dry air as much as possible and I would prefer not to have any bottlenecks in the system. I am already used to manually oiling tools, so I don't really need and oiler, plus I know it would interfere with the plasma, painting and sandblasting.
I was originally looking at: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=98904
I like that it is just a filter/regulator, don't like that it is 1/2" in, but only 1/4" out. This to me falls under the "bottle neck" category. I was considering 2 of them, but at $60 for the pair that adds up.
The second option is something like: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92261
I don't like the oiler, but I can just not add any oil to it, not sure what size the inlet/outlet is. Even for a pair it is $20 cheaper
The next option is something like: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=97686
It would probably net very dry air, however I have to buy replacement media (can it be oven dried?) and I don't know how it would do at filtering particles and I would need a regulator
This could be combined with running something like: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=94346
At each of the outlets, but I will have to maintain all of them
There is also the "toilet paper" motorguard filter, but it is fairly expensive. and I will have to run a seperate regulator
So who has what, what is the best and what did I miss?