Going to build an aftercooler.....my condenser pics

[Spokerider]

Gents,
I am going to build an aftercooler for my 5HP Devilbiss 16 CFM air compressor. It has an 80 gallon tank.

Why? Because the even with water separators, and a small 110v air dryer in place, I still have moisture in the lines when doing auto body spray painting longer than just 10 minutes. I live on the humid west coast.

So....... I bought this non-working reefer unit. It is big and heavy, 4 ft by 5 ft. Dunno why it doesn't work, don't really care anyway. The PO said it didn't, so he just bought a new one.

It has 2 condensers on it. One, the smaller one with the black colored fan shroud has what looks to be 3/8ths OD copper cooling lines, and two large fans mounted to it. The other condenser, with the aluminum fins exposed is larger. It has what looks to be 1/2" OD cooling lines, more of them, and is longer and larger as you can see in the pics. That condenser [ heat exchanger? ] circulates and cools the inside air in the walk-in cooler.


My question is........which one should I use to build the after-cooler?
I don't know anything about these reefer condensers......cooling efficiency, psi ratings, etc.....


The smaller one is more compact, and has the fans and shroud already there, but will it have the cooling capacity needed? The larger one will require more fab work, but if it is the better choice, then it's worth the work.

Yes, I know I will need a "franzinatior" or similar to separate and drain the water.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Tim37]

I would think the condenser coil would work better since it's designed to cool hot gasses

 

[American Locomotive]

The one with the compressors mounted to it, and the larger of the coil assemblies is the "condenser". The smaller coil with the smaller fans is called the "evaporator".

The condenser coil would be the one to use, as it's larger and appears to have two circuits in parallel, meaning it can handle a greater volume of gas flow. It also has much bigger fans.

Have you considered looking into desiccant dryers?

 

[Markfothebeast]

That'll work great. I ran a measley 1/2" 14' copper line BEFORE the tank and it did very little. I prefer to have the air cool before the tank. The line would still get up over 200f for a few feet but it didn't cool the air enough to make the separator catch moisture. My other idea is to keep the cylinder head cooled in some way to cool the air before it hits the line.

My 60 gal tank outlet has grade M 3/4" Copper piping (not tubing) and runs for about 20'. The air is cool enough by the time it hits the separator that it removes most of the moisture. But I do prefer to remove the moisture before the tank to keep it from rusting.

My next plan was to use a car A/C condensor but I never got around to it.

Either unit of yours should make quite a difference over the "intercoolers" or "aftercoolers" sold for residential compressors. The unit with the larger copper line looks like a good candidate. It may even work just fine without a fan.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[Markfothebeast]

One other thing about running larger compressors for an extended period - I like to keep it under the duty cycle. Which is 30 minutes on mine. And after 20 minutes the cylinder head itself exceeds 315f. Thus I was thinking about cooling the cylinder head.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[Spokerider]

The one with the compressors mounted to it, and the larger of the coil assemblies is the "condenser". The smaller coil with the smaller fans is called the "evaporator".

The condenser coil would be the one to use, as it's larger and appears to have two circuits in parallel, meaning it can handle a greater volume of gas flow. It also has much bigger fans.

Have you considered looking into desiccant dryers?

Thanks for the replies guys.
I'm still not getting which one is the condenser, and which one is the evaporator, and which one I should use?

The one with the two fans mounted to it is the smaller of the two......not as thick, not as long, and has the 3/8ths OD copper tube running thorough it.

The larger one, that is in the white box that has the three fans in the floor of the box, is longer, thicker, maybe not as tall, but has 1/2" OD copper tube running through it.

Yes, I do have a large Princess Auto [ thats the same as H.F. for you guys in the states ] dessicant dryer that will be installed downstream of the 80 gallon compressor tank.

 

[American Locomotive]

The condenser is the one with two fans mounted to the tray with the compressor (the black round object with the wire going into it).

If this was a matched system, the condenser will have more surface area than the evaporator. Condensers are always larger than evaporators, as the condenser has to to deal with not only the heat the evaporator is removing, but the heat of the compressor as well.

 

[Spokerider]

Ok, thank you for that explanation. That helps clear it up in my mind. I didn't realize that the condenser also removes the heat from the evaporator.......thus making the condenser the obvious choice [ once you know how it works! ].
Yes, these parts are all matched from factory.