I made a post the other day asking for a critique of my cut, in that post I claimed I had dry clean air, I think that is incorrect. I was using my blowgun this morning and noticed on short blasts I saw moisture blow out of it, I drained my separator and a little came out, i went further down the line to my motor guard and pulled the filter, it was clean and dry, is it possible moisture can get past that? I’ll post pictures below of my setup and also the consumables that only have minimal use on them, is the weird marks on them a sign of moisture?
Looking at your consumables, you definitely have a moisture issue. The motorguard isn’t intended to filter moisture, it is a particulate filter. What type of climate do you live in. What you have pictured I would say is the bare minimum for someone in a dry climate.
3rd stop is the setup before the motor guard That makes sense about the motor guard, I guess I assumed took moisture out by the material it was made out of…oops I live in NH and its been raining for the past week and my garage is half under grade so its been real humid, I run a humidifier in there to control mold and keep my tools from rusting and it sits around 50% humidity. Are my only options a compressed Air Dryer?
Are you draining the compressor tank regularly? That should be at least a once or twice per day thing.
The motor guard filter material will saturate quickly with water and then needs to be replaced. No way to dry it out.
You definitely want/need to add a desiccant filter of one quart size or more depending on how much cutting you do. The motor guard filter should be after the desiccant filter to catch any particles off those plastic beads.
I am in a pretty humid area (western Washington state) and I got be reasonably well by being very diligent with draining the compressor tank. I have since added lots of drying equipment including the HF refrigerated dryer.
Your “2nd Stop” looks like a water trap? It will need to be a minimum of 20 feet of air line away from your compressor to even hope to grab any water out of the air. But, even at that, I have not found any of my 4 water traps to have any moisture in them.
I think in your climate that is a good idea. Make sure to note that refrigerated air dryers work better if… or even require, that you cool the air before it gets to the dryer. Most standard dryers typically can handle inlet temperatures of around 100-115 degrees F. High temp refrigerated dryers can accept air that is around 200 F. A reciprocating compressor output could be 300 to 350 F before it hits the tank. That being the case, you will need to have a length of pipe or some other method to cool the air before it gets to the refrigerated air dryer.
That makes sense about the motor guard, I guess I assumed took moisture out by the material it was made out of…oops I live in NH and its been raining for the past week and my garage is half under grade so its been real humid, I run a humidifier in there to control mold and keep my tools from rusting and it sits around 50% humidity. Are my only options a compressed Air Dryer?