Hey, I’m new to the site. Just purchased a Crossfire XR. Would like to see some water control systems you have come up with to fill and drain the table. I have a 55gal plastic drum as a reservoir.
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55-gallon tank is not enough capacity, table holds about 65 gallons. I have a 75-gallon tank under my XR table.
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I had a tank on my old machine that used air pressure to fill the table. It worked great. I was thinking of doing something like that to my XR. What type of pumps are you using on yours?
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I have a Harbor freight pump.
I used a similar setup to this on my Pro table - using compressed air to push water up to the table. Modified it here to be cleaner and more direct. Highly recommend using PEX tubing and couplers. It is incredibly easy to work with. The couplers can get expensive but it is so fast and the tubing is so cheap. I was so close to building a PVC drain and I’m so happy I pulled the plug on that idea for a number of reasons. Namely time to install and lack of flexibility once installed and once it’s in you can’t move your water tank easily because it’s a rigid system. The only issue I was having, which you’ll have no matter which system you choose, is that the damn threads on a 1.5" drain do not want to thread into any connection whether it’s pvc or metal. But got these galvanized adapters to work.
There are 1.5" threads on the water tank that you can cut a hole through in order to use, would be a much more efficient drain but I wanted something quick and easy that I knew would work. So I used the existing, smaller 3/4" (maybe 1/2") to run the water out. Putting a multi piece frankenstien connection on 65 gallons of water (the water tank says do not use metal threads) didn’t amuse me.
I put a regulator on the air line going into the tank because on my pro table there was a couple times I accidentally popped the valve wide open ballooning the water tank. Nothing ever happened but, 65 gallons of water… not a risk I want to take, this way if I turn the valve fully on it won’t get hit with 100psi. I also added a valve after the regulator, not shown, that lets air out of the tank to drain the table faster than having to remove the air back through the regulator. That valve also lets you remove pressure from the tank after the tank is full, which keeps the last of the water from bubbling up into the table.
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I would recommend putting some kind of filter between your table and your tank, otherwise you’re going to collect a lot of steel bits in it that are going to extremely difficult to remove over time.
I use one of these as the first step
and then a 20 micron woven in one of these generic housings for any fine dust that wants to bypass it.
What do you figure your drain time will be for 65 gallons? You’ll probably get a flow rate of 5-6 GPM with half inch pipe. Maybe just over 10-15 minutes to drain it?
Is the tank below vented or is it displacing air up the same pipe that it’s draining from? I guess air would escape up the fill pipe as the tank is filling.
thanks for the tip. it’s something I’ve wanted to do but wasn’t sure how to go about doing it. I might add a catch that I can just open a valve and the debris falls out but your option might be better. I never had one on my pro table and never cleaned out the tank after 2-3 years. Need to see how much sludge is in there. I didn’t mind the drains being a little proud to act as a passive filter, so it would leave a fine line of water and debris behind hopefully, but not an ideal solution.
I’ll time it next time. On my Pro I had a 1.25 hose and it would drain in 30 seconds but this one takes a lot longer.
The ‘vent’ outlet on the tank is the same as the air inlet. So the air goes in up at the top corner of the tank. You can see it in the pics. Then I have a valve up on that same line that I open to let the air out when I’m done and the water drains. The biggest limiting factor is the size of the inlet on the tank, so I could increase the size of the tubing but the water will bottle neck at the inlet. If I move to the 1-1/2" inlet it will be way faster. Having the drains in a line, all on the same size tubing, would be the next change. I think pumping the water into the middle of the chain of drains with bigger tubing would let me move a lot more water.
Here’s a pic of the valve vent I open to drain the tank.
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But 11 minutes until it starts gargling and about empty.
not a bad guess eh. lol
I did make a 3d printed file for a 3.5” sink basket swaging die if you are interested .
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Not that it matters in this case but a drain gurgling is usually a sign the air vent is restricted.
What do you think someone was counting down on the wall with the tallies?
A bigger drain would definitely drain faster. You might also have to increase the vent size with a larger drain because it’ll be displacing the air in the tank quicker.
Wow that looks nice.
You hit the number on the money with the drain. Yeah the whole system could use some bigger tubes but we are fine for now.
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