I have a Dewalt 30 gal 110v compressor with a Dewalt filter/dryer like this one. I added a drain hose. My problem is that the blue/pink desiccant pellets in the filter/dryer need to be removed and dried daily and go pink almost as soon as I turn on the compressor. Even worse is that the cannister is difficult to remove. What's a better system? I'm not painting (yet), just grinding, sanding, etc. but I probably don't want water running through my tools.
The dessicant filter isn't really meant to handle that much moisture. It's intended as a final (or near final) step to remove moisture. If it's getting "pink" that quickly, it means you have a lot of moisture in your air leading up to the dessicant filter and you need to take steps to address it up stream.
Without knowing more about how your system is setup, I'll just be speculating, but here's a few things to think about:
- a cooler/drier is going to be the most effective way of removing moisture from your system. This can be a refrigerated drier or a simple heat exchanger like a radiator or even just runs of thetmally conductive metal tubing.
- The longer run of pipe you have in your system upstream of the filter/drier, the more opportunity your air will have to cool and condense. You can then catch this dondensate in the pipe itself or it will be caught as liquid water in the water trap, leaving less moisture in the air to be caught by the dessicant. The aftercooler/heat exchanger described above is just a way of artificially adding length of pipe in the system if you don't have the room/need for a long piped distribution system.
- One thing to consider is your compressor itself. If your pushing it really hard (running constantly) it will run hotter which will introduce more moisture into the compressed air. A bigger compressor running less often will run cooler and you won't have as much moisture in the compressed air to begin with.
If you're in a humid environment, you're always going to have to deal with moisture. It just comes down to how dry you need your air to be and what you're willing to do to fix it. The solutions described above can range from less than $100 to several thousand.
Maybe you can describe your air distribution system in greater detail so we have more to work with?
