Air line water filter ?s

[itstippy]

I searched the forum under "Air Line Water Seperator" an hour ago and have been reading since. Lots of interesting (and involved) setups and good info. My question is extremely basic - forgive me please.

Today I bought this heavy-duty air line water seperator from a guy with piles of "stuff" ($20). It looks like a setup that a member posted on the abrasive blasting thread. He has his mounted to a board and takes it outside when he blasts, hooks it up to his air line near the blaster, and gets good results. I want to duplicate his system. I hooked up my new gadget to my shop air supply and the regulator works great. Now the newbie question - what exactly do the two bowls do? Do they both seperate water? The one on the left comes apart readily and has a ceramic-looking filter similar to and old inline gasoline filter. The bowl on the right (under the regulator) doesn't come apart, only the metal safety housing comes off. Inside the bowl looks like another ceramic filter. Both bowls have drain valves. Is it simply one water filter after another?

 

[930dreamer]

I think the air swirls around the bowl, but it has to be cool for the moisture to drop out.

 

[plinker]

What you have in your picture is a filter and a filter/regulator. The bowl should come off the filter/regulator, it may break in the process though, likely threaded and has not ever been removed.

If you search the various brands available you can find filters pretty reasonable on ebay, keep in mind working pressure spec's & port size.

If the air isnt cooled off when it gets to the filter you will still have moisture concerns. What I had done for blasting is run a hose from the compressor to an air tank then to the blaster. Worked well.

 

[itstippy]

Thanks for the info; I've got a 10 gallon portable air tank with a bad hose kicking around; I'll plumb it properly and add it to the new blasting setup. I've wanted the ability to media blast for a long time. Blasters show up on Craigslist frequently but my workshop compressor isn't big enough to run one and blasting is noisy & messy. However . . .

I recently acquired an oldie-but-goodie SpeedAir 20 gallon 5HP gasoline powered compressor on wheels. I tuned up the B&S engine and it runs great. It makes a tremendous racket and a lot of air. I've got a place in the country where I can go and make as much noise & filth as a man could want. Woo hoo! This is going to be a blast (literally).

 

[matt_i]

What you have there is the classic cyclonic air filter. More or less the idea is to get the air turning quickly and the heavier water droplet gets slung out via centripetal acceleration and then collects in the bowl.

Works well for macro droplets. Not as well for micro droplets. A coalescing air filter is the next stage of filtration although it is more restrictive.

Be careful of plugging in that heavy assembly without support. The cantilevered load on a quick connect can make it leak.

 

[JimNC]

Blasting with a 20gal tank, I’m guessing that you’ll move air fast enough even with an extra 10 gal reservoir that your air will be hot and moist. Not sure how dry it needs to be for your application.

 

[itstippy]

I'd assumed that making as short a distance as possible between the compressor and the media blaster was desireable, to reduce pressure drop. I was going to use a 10' hose from compressor tank to reservoir tank, then 5' to the water seperator, then 5' to the blaster tank. Basically, cut up a 25' hose and use the shorter sections.

Would I be better off to run a 25' (or longer) hose between the compressor and the reservoir, to dissipate some heat? Heat vs. pressure drop - no free lunch. It would be less noisy, though.

Would a coalescing air filter be best placed immediately before the cyclonic air filter, immediately after, or somewhere else?

 

[sberry]

Some hose won't hurt sandblasting.

 

[plinker]

I used a 30-ish foot hoe between the compressor and air tank and it was fine. The thing with air is as it moves it cools down.

Example; If you have let the air out of a tire by removing the valve core, you'll note the stem gets a bit frosty. That is due to the air moving.

 

[pcmeiners]

"That is due to the air moving. "
Not exactly, the air cools because it is going from a higher pressure ( tire pressure) to lower pressure ( ambient air pressure).