Compressed air cooling and dryer DIY

[neveradullmoment]

Getting ready to paint my car in my garage and needed to get good dry air. Looked at buying a refrigerated dryer and decided to go with 1/2 inch black pipe. About 70 feet total. Have 20 foot runs down and back side wall of garage then goes into 5 foot vertical runs with drip legs before going in to filter bank with coalescing and two Hankison final filters.

 

[why worry]

Should do the trick!

 

[Bretny]

Useing black pipe to cool/dry the air is a bad idea. A really bad idea with 1/2in. I have seen the center diameter of 1/2in black pipe down to 5/16 after a few years due to rust.

I used copper on mine years ago. I made my cooler from a coil of 3/8 copper then to a few runs of 1/2in copper tees with 6ft secrions of copper. All tilted one direction so they drain snd all before my tank. My tank hardly ever gets water in it and when it does its about half a shot glass full and not rusty.

 

[neveradullmoment]

I have worked in quite a few factory settings over the years and have seen miles of black pipe for air line runs. Copper tubing for small lines on equipment but never copper for the piped air. Maybe stainless pipe in some settings but black pipe was the norm.

 

[dkmc]

A customer of mine has an extensive Kaiser compressor installation, with multiple units, air driers, etc. The entire plant air system is copper pipe, looks to be soldered. Not sure and very curious if it's soft soldered or silver soldered. I've seen copper from 1/2" up to 2" run thru the plant. Surprised it's not black iron in this scale of installation.

When I saw the OP's pics, I thought 'should have used copper'.
Maybe less of it.

 

[OhioRandy]

I worked for a major mfg. co. that used lots of compressed air ( up to 600 psi ) and ALL of the compressed air lines were copper.

 

[OhioRandy]

Sorry, not the 600 psi lines but all of the 125 lines.

 

[cooljoe57]

I don't think Bretny meant you cant use black pipe for airlines. Pretty sure he meant using it for the cooling part isn't a great idea, due to the increased water content.

 

[BCreekDave]

Black iron pipe just doesn’t transfer the heat as well as copper. The heat in the compressed air stays in as the pipe acts as an insulator to the cooler ambient shop air temperature, at least as compared to copper. If you’ve seen those wall manifolds made of copper where they go up and down many times to cool the air and use 20 feet of tubing in the process figure about 200 feet of black iron pipe to achieve the same cooling results.


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[bsaint]

Its winter - send that air outside to cool off, then bring it back inside. You'll get a 32*F dewpoint easy!

 

[pcmeiners]

Black iron pipe just doesn’t transfer the heat as well as copper. The heat in the compressed air stays in as the pipe acts as an insulator to the cooler ambient shop air temperature, at least as compared to copper. If you’ve seen those wall manifolds made of copper where they go up and down many times to cool the air and use 20 feet of tubing in the process figure about 200 feet of black iron pipe to achieve the same cooling results.

Not one of your statements is true, look up on google .......... metal emission chart

Black pipe will radiate more heat than copper pipe, unless the copper pipe is solid black. Copper is a better conductor of heat, but does not radiate heat all that well, especially any copper resembling bright copper. Both are about equal if the copper is black in color.