Last year I upgraded my setup. My oil-less Pro-Air II (picture 1) put out a decent volume but the air right off the compressor was full of water. I added a water separator, coalescing filter and hose reel so it was handy but the filter got saturated with water pretty quick. To get rid of the water I ran 1/2" galvanized pipe from the compressor to the front of the garage and connected it to a $40 desiccant dryer (yellow thing in picture 2). Instead of running one 15-foot pipe, I added a 20-foot S, making the cooling line 35-feet (picture 3), which is ten more than recommended. Added drains to each end of the run and one more under the dryer gave me pretty dry and clean air.
I built this setup expecting to eventually upgrade the compressor to a horizontal 60-gallon, 5 hp Eaton. The 60" wide, 42.5" high space under the cabinets is just big enough for the Eaton (54"x40"x22"). I had $1,500 saved but as time went on, the setup kept working so I bought a new aluminum radiator and coilovers for my big block Corvette. Decided to overhaul the old compressor and maybe even build a cover to reduce the deafening noise. Figured I still had $500 and I planned to rebuild the nestegg.
The day the custom radiator arrived, the Devilbiss Pro-Air II pump head on the motor exploded (my own fault). Couldn't find the castings to fix it so I checked the Eaton site and saw that nothing was on sale and the $999 compressor was now $1,199 and shipping was not free. Hmmm, 520 pounds from Ohio to Florida -- UPS site estimates $600 so it might be half that with Eaton's discount. Still talking $1,500. Another $100 for the 220v outlet -- $1,600 for a 14 SCFM @100 psi compressor.
A Harbor Freight flyer arrived that week and advertised a US General 3.5 hp 60-gallon 12.85 SCFM @90 psi compressor for $399. Unfortunately it's a vertical so it won't fit my cabinet setup. I tossed the ad and went into the garage to stare at the problem. I thought about pouring a slab outside the garage and installing the compressor on it. That would mean also building some kind of enclosure (it sometimes rains hard in South Florida and in a hurricane some pretty big stuff starts blowing around). I'd be back to spending a bunch of money I don't have. I didn't borrow money to buy my house so I sure wasn't going to borrow money for a compressor.
Staring at the cabinets didn't help but when I measured them, I realized they were 42" tall (I used those cheap Mills Pride stock cabinet doors from Home Depot on my home-made cabinets). Only a half-inch space under the cabinet but moving just the one cabinet made a perfect spot for a 60-gallon vertical compressor. My neighbor drove me to Harbor Freight with his truck and we picked up the compressor. Had to cut some holes in the sides of the moved cabinet to run the galvanized pipe through but it was pretty simple and I added a couple of unions to the ends of the pipes inside so they came out even. Two tees on the pipes let me have drains for any condensation. One tee is the supply and the other is the return (picture 4). My old setup had a 3/8" pipe going through the garage wall so I could have compressed air outside without having to run the hose out the back door and let air-conditioned air out of the garage. I use the outside line to connect my small blast cabinet and it keeps the dust out of the garage. I also have a paint shaker that I can mount out there. I moved the hose reel higher on the wall, along with a new coalescing filter. My old filter had 1/4" fittings and I upgraded to the larger 1/2" unit. Same element, just more air flow.
I swapped a couple of 15-amp breakers for double breakers and freed up space for a 30-amp double-pole and wired an outlet just above the compressor (might be just the thing when my fund is replenished and I can get that Eastwood MIG with the spool gun). While I was plumbing this setup, (picture 5) I tee-d two extra quick-connects. One is a plain air, direct outlet from the compressor. It's low on the wall and it should be handy for blowing dust out of the garage before setting it up for painting the Corvette. Don't need dry or filtered air for that. The second outlet is a few feet above the first and is before the filter. This gives me unfiltered but dried air. The final outlet is on the wall to the left of the compressor and it normally connects dry filtered air through the retractable hose reel. I have a brand new 50-foot 1/2" hose with 3/8" fittings that can connect to that outlet to be sure I have plenty of air volume for the spray gun.
Everything in the system is 1/2-inch or larger. The 3/4" braided hose from the compressor to the hard line is from a water heater installation kit so there is no flow restriction until you get to the quick-connects (picture 6). Most of my air tool collection has 1/4" fittings (far left and right in picture 6) and they work just fine. There are 3/8" air couplers on the main lines and the hose reel, my long (50-foot) hoses, HVLP spray guns, blast cabinet and a few air pigs (second from left and right in picture 6 are 3/8" high flow couplers). The quick-connects on the coalescing filter are the 1/2" monsters (OK, monsters in my world) shown in the center of picture 6. I found the females for $13 each and the males for $4.00 each so the two connections cost $34 plus shipping and handling. I put these on the filter hoses (1/2" hose with 1/2" fittings) because I wanted minimal flow restriction into and out of the filter. The quick connect lets me easily bypass the filter when sandblasting outside. I could have done it differently but figured I'd need two different air lines going through the wall to get the same result. You often need dry air but not necessarily oil-free air for quite a few jobs (just my thought).
Because so many of my air tools have 1/4" fittings, I made up a few 3/8" to 1/4" adapters for both directions (the two on the left in picture 7 are adapters). Eventually I'll replace all my fittings with the high-flow but after buying out all of HF's clearance pieces for $0.07 each, it's going to be hard to spend $3 a piece for them somewhere else.
Sorry for the long post but I'm out of money and killing time while waiting for my Social Security check.
It's a 4 stage 4 piston pump made in England by Bristol Pneumatics. It came from the factory with a 20hp or 15hp option. Mine is 15hp, but I will be swapping it to a 10hp single phase motor as soon as I find one, and reducing the RPM accordingly. With the 20hp motor, it produced 24 CFM at 5000 psi. Should be right around 11 or 12 cfm at 5000 when I'm done with the 10hp motor swap.
