ordered. Now I’ll have to move the main air service line, but I have a plan, no biggie. Where should I send my address so you can send me a bracket? 
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Oh…I get it. You won’t have the table yet. 
You are a funny guy!!! If you don’t want to wait…gosh. Are you serious?
When I replied a while back that all my aftercooler did was keep water out of the tank, you asked if that was the point. Looking at your setup you don’t have the cooler in between the tank and pump, unless I’m missing something.
What is your auto drain for? The tank itself? Does the separator after the cooler drain itself after pressure is gone? I’m super curious to see if that collects any water.
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Steady hands at 9 beer.
How are you draining the aftercooler?
Like @ChelanJim & @brownfox questioned I also don t see how you get air to move across the aftercooling with it flat against the wall.
Does the gray hose plumbed in to the top right aftercooling fitting run directly to the right side of the tank outlet ?
Here you are describing the condensing coil which is normally the outdoor or backroom part on a air conditioner
After the compressor, the discharge line carries High Temperature high Pressure gas to the condensing coil to reject heat and cause state change in the refrigerant. a Low Temperature high pressure Liquid.
Here you are describing the metering device which is the divide between the High pressure side and low pressure side of the system and feeds the evaporator . This drop in pressure starts a state change in the refrigerant. now to change state the refrigerant required a huge amount of energy and to get this energy from absorbing heat from the surrounding area (this includes the pipework).
This is what is happening here. The tool and the end of the hose becomes an evaporator absording heat.
The air is actually Absorbing heat to cause this issue. The air will move slower near inside walls of the pipe, this slower move air may start to have its water vapour condense even freeze against the insides of the pipe (really there should not be this much water vapour in the compressed air by the time it reaches the tool…). meanwhile the air flow (laminar ) in the middle of the pipe is still absorbing heat .
This effect is exploited by vortex and membrane air coolers at the expense of a huge pressure drop and/or the blowing off some of compressed air to atmosphere.
@Sticks This is a topic from awhile that discusses some of these coolers
IMO the kind of heat exchanges we want for rejecting heat from compressed air are condensing coils, that reject heat and maintain pressure.
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I have not done any research into the theory for this application. I am just applying life experience to a possible application to gain the benefit.
Based on what I have done with AC work, the high pressure side post compressor runs around 150psi+ and the low side can be 40-80. If we could get it to sit around 80-90psi on the low side post orifice and pre regulator, then the plasma cutter should be able to function providing there is enough CFM with the arrangement.
It would make for an interesting experiment to see if dumping the compressor output line into a manifold with multiple .060 ports with individual lines, the into another manifold to a single line, then running that output into the tank to see what the temp drop is.
these two systems picture below are the closest i know of that come close to your description.
that is this membrane dryer
And this is a pseudo version of The vortex cooler
Also the efficiency of the compressor drops as the pressure increases so you are really robbing compressor efficiency to cool the air through pressure drop.
Lots of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
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that is an automatic water trap with a small filter as they come.
ignore the grey flexible conduit. That transports teletricity…
I read this entire thread. As others have pointed out it may have little effect to aftercool in between compression and tank so I opted for a post tank design.
Steps in water extraction in my system.
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Auto drain on timer that is powered only when the compressor gets juice. This drains the tank every time I turn it on and currently every 15m after.
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Transmission cooler/after cooler. As noted I acknowledged Jims observation about distance from the wall. There is actually 1/2” space and volume wise with the fan pulling its not a major concern but I will probably add spacers. PID timer set to 125d for fan. Notably, this step only makes a difference on long runs where the compressor will turn on and start producing water. For quick cuts on the plasma it will be using stored air.
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Automatic water trap
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Dissecant (2.5cups) water capture (not installed yet)
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M60 air filter
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main service line set to 122psi max
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water trap drop line
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Mini regulator distribution blocks with drains
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Arizona low humidity
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I also installed a 20” box fan above the AC that I can angle to push air into it
All of this has to fit in that tiny little corner of a two car garage. All of the space is taken for tools and processes. When I return from vacay I’m going to order a 4x4 CNC router/mill that takes up 7’x7’ space. I am also adding a combination fixture table, table saw, construction table with three langmuir arc flat welding tables. Haven’t told wife yet. Underneath that table will be a planer and jointer on drawer slides. I am planning a fairly huge grizzly dust collector too, and a miter saw station along the wall…
This picture should make it easier to understand which hose I am talking about . Is it hooked to the outlet of the compressor’s tank directly.
Hard to tell from the video but the hose looks light black to me.
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oh. ya that’s black high pressure 275d flash hose
I got the 300 degree 300PSI hose last week, installed it and in 2 hours of use it had already heated up too much and split. I’m just going to get an 8-AN to 3/8" compression fitting and run an aluminum line. I don’t remember who it was but someone was saying it doesn’t matter putting the cooler between the compressor and the tank, I disagree. If you put your cooler and water separator before the tank you are keeping the majority of the water out of your tank AND get 200 degree cooler air in your tank. If you run your cooler and separator after your tank your tank still gets the hot air AND all of the moisture. The only thing I would recommend to do differently is mounting your cooler away from your tank, my setup is using the compressor pulley fan to cool the cooler but I have seen my compressor head temp rise by about 40 degrees. My 2 cents, as a rank amateur.
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I had mine that way and took it off after doing some testing. Your compressor will have much longer cycle times. You will not catch all your moisture pre tank so no major benefits. As for me I didn’t gain anything having it pre tank except almost double cycle times.
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I am curious about this hose. Do you have a part number? Seems like a very short operating life.
Do you think it was defective ?
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You want stainless steel braided Teflon hose to go from the pump to tank. Too hot otherwise. I had some made at a local hose shop when I had my cooler installed.
I feel bad having promoted this mod only to reverse it two years later.
If the cooler post tank shows any water collecting, then I guess we will know that pre tank it may have served a purpose. But if having it post rank doesn’t show anything, I think it’s definitely debunked.
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I had one pre and post tank my post tank always caught moisture on long runs
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I want to chime in here. I just ran one pre tank and for almost all intents and purposes loved it. I was collecting no moisture in tank. Purging a ton of water from cooler each cycle and thought all was good. I saw @brownfox comment about double the cycle time and began to think my cycle times were kinda on the long side for my supposed compressor output. Just for fun I bypassed cooler and ran directly into tank. Cut my charge time almost by half as well!! Perhaps my cooler was too restrictive. The actual line was about 1/4 inch diameter. It did everything I wanted it to. Lowered temp dramatically (like 200 degrees delta) stopped a ton of moisture and I had no moisture draining from my tank. At time I could still get condensation in my air hose on humid days if I wasn’t using desiccant but it was grabbing a lot of water. I have now decided to take the cooler out of the loop. I am trying a diy refrigerator cooler instead. I coiled about 60 feet of 1/2 pex around a piece of 5 inch pipe in two layers. I placed this in a mini fridge that I have adjusted to 34 degrees. I made penetrations through the door for the inlet and outlet lines and places a auto purge coaelescing water trap immediately exiting the refrigerator door. Need to pick up a couple of short flexible airlines and I will give it a try. I theorize that if my compressor was running almost double the necessary time then perhaps If my bar fridge works I will be in the same realm energy consumption wise but not working my compressor so hard.
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