"Junk" in water separator?

[Thompson2]

I haven't had this compressor up and running that long and it doesn't have many hours on the current hardware configuration (aftercooler with fans and water separator before the tank), so I'm concerned with the white "junk" showing up in the separator. It's small pieces that clump together when wet and looks a lot like aluminum oxide. It's fairly flaky / brittle when dry. The biggest problem I've got with it is that it will interfere with the closing of the auto drain on the separator... well, that and the general concern that there's some weird **** going on with my system.

There are stacked fans on an aftercooler that's between the pump and the tank. It's all thick copper lines connecting it all together. It's all 3.4" except for a 1/2"-3/4" adapter at the outlet of the aftercooler.

I'm assuming I've done something stupid in my setup that's causing this and/or making it worse than it should be, so feel free to throw poo at my setup. I haven't pulled it all apart since it's mostly soldered in place and I'm doing my best to avoid that since it was a pain to build in the first place... but if I gotta, I gotta.

Any guidance would be appreciated!

Pics of my setup and the "junk".




The stuff on the sides of the separator is stuck on.. the stuff in the bottom builds up and can be scraped off some... what's in the pic of the bottom is after a cleanup... The filter screen is also turning green, but I'm assuming that's relatively normal for a copper-based element.

 

[redmondjp]

Looks like moisture-based corrosion products of the base metals to me. I wouldn't stress about it too much. Main thing is to periodically drain the moisture out of all of the places in the system that it tends to build up in.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Looks like moisture-based corrosion products of the base metals to me. I wouldn't stress about it too much. Main thing is to periodically drain the moisture out of all of the places in the system that it tends to build up in.

This.

Clean it out and maybe apply some oil to prevent further corrosion.

All in all I’ve seen lots worse.

 

[Thompson2]

Yeah, I assumed it was corrosion.. just seemed weird that something intended to remove / hold water would corrode that easily... May see if there's a manual drain I can swap in or maybe replace the separator with a "normal" drip line.

The aftercooler / fan setup works amazingly well... the output line is pretty much room temp... so I'm assuming most / all of the water is coming out in the separator... but it's not enough to have it drain multiple times a day. Plus the float doesn't let all of the water, so it's always wel... Any thoughts on putting a T and a drip line with a manual valve just before (or maybe in place of) the separator ?

Not a big fan of oil right before the tank, but a thin film might be a the ticket.. just want to keep bigger pieces from keeping the float from dropping and leaving a leak from the drain.. Oh, and not have it explode on me at a later date.