ANYBODY MAKE A COMPRESSED AIR AFTER COOLER

JC Daniel

Promoted Users
I was wandering if any of you guys have made your own compressed air after cooler? If so can you give some specifics and pictures to help me out? My compressor is approximately 32 scfm at 120 psi. Would a regular vehicle radiator work?
 
I would not do that! Radiators are designed to work at pressures below 25 psi or so, there would likely be a catastrophic failure if you did that. A large A/C condenser would work, or several smaller ones in parallel.
 
An after cooler works by cooling the air to get the water out of it and its very effective, but you can also cool the air with a long run of metal pipe with a drain drop off before the filters. Its not as effective, but probably good enough your purposes. The filters are more for removing the final bits of moisture, but without a cooling and draining process first, the filters get saturated quickly.
 
I wonder if a tube and fin style cooler would work and be compact if space was an issue.

This particular one says it has a working pressure of 250 and burst of 300.


Stumbled across it on Amazon, some of the reviews are interesting.

 
Here is what I have now, 5 -5 foot 3/4 copper drops all with ball valves that are about 3 feet behind the compressor then around the ceiling 35 foot with a drop and ball valve before going to a 1 gallon desiccant dryer, Motor guard M-60 and a gauge. I still have problems with water causing fish eyes in clear, Any solution would be greatly appreciated and save me a bunch of time and money.
 
My problem on the job I just finished was fish eyes, I cleaned everything really good with 710 and waited 40 minutes before base. I checked desicca nt and the top was saturated so I am trying my best to fix the problem. Thanks so much for the help/
 
JC, save yourself some frustration and get a refrigerated dryer. My conditions here are worse than most places, but after trying many different filters, replumbing, changing desiccant constantly, I finally gave up and replaced the dryer that had quit. Lots of wasted time and money trying to get consistent results. The dryers are the only way to go, IMO. They are available on craigslist and marketplace used quite often and normally last for many years. The IR I had lasted for 17 years running 10-12 hours a day. The Harbor Freight dryers would be fine for your application, especially if you plumbed it just for paint application.
 
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I've made two of my own using an old dorm fridge, 25 feet of copper tubing, a five gallon bucket, and a water trap... junk I already had laying around. Works great. Just having a bunch of tubing after the tank won't cool the air enough for moisture in the lines to condense when it's hot and humid outside.

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I've made two of my own using an old dorm fridge, 25 feet of copper tubing, a five gallon bucket, and a water trap... junk I already had laying around. Works great. Just having a bunch of tubing after the tank won't cool the air enough for moisture in the lines to condense when it's hot and humid outside.

Awesome idea, cheap and easy.
 
I use 3 copper drops with ball valves at bottom of 6ft drop 3ft apart with a old an old ac indoor acoil off a 5 ton unit with couple desicant inline filters comingout and at gun live and high texas heat and it works awsome been using for about.4 yr now no problem and might have $100 tied up in the whole set up
 
I wouldn't use an automotive ac condenser because oil circulates in the freon. Tube size is also very restrictive on them.
I like the mini fridge idea for a hobbyist.
 
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