Black pipe or galvanized for shop air lines?

[kennyd]

Just looking at the picture the Fallon posted of that commercial condenser I can't help but wonder one thing. It is almost exactly the same size as the generic pickup truck auxiliary auto tranny cooler i have hanging on my wall. What is to stop someone from soldering something like that in for the same effect. $170 seems pretty pricy for that small typical looking radiator.

What is the pressure rating of a tranny cooler?

 

[Scrambler82]

What about... if you have a shop refrig... drill a couple of holes for the air lines and put the cooling coils in the frig ?

 

[Fallon]

What is the pressure rating of a tranny cooler?

That is the key question. A/C gear has the pressure rating, but I didn't have any luck digging any up cheap that wasn't to small. I thought about various types of oil coolers, but wasn't sure on pressure ratings. I found some race ones rated to 200psi or something, but there was no cost savings. Radiators are much lower pressure.

If you have one handy I'd test that oil cooler to 200psi or so then use it if it doesn't blow.

 

[drizler]

I'll have to give it a whirl one of these days. I'm not using it anyways and it just sits there. Not concerned about it holding up either. It's steel and my whole system is nothing but copper water pipe and 50/50 solder joints. Never a problem with any of them in almost 18 years. Of course being a single stage that speaks Chinese it doesn't get way up there anyways. That cooler I suppose has to be set up so there is a drip leg down one end facing downward into some sort of drainable collection tank. I just can't get it through my head that a radiator that small is going to have that much effect without a fan blowing across it.
So let me get this straight,,,,,,, line out of AC pump over to the cooler mounted on whatever. Drip leg down to drainable cannister. Other end out the top of cooler up to regulator set at say 100 Lbs. Ac puts out 125ish . From there it goes into the tank at the lower100lb pressure. Then air goes out its regular tap into my air system up the wall and out to the shop. Is that right?????? or something like it...:confused3:
One other question with that commercial rig Fallon? It says it has one outlet only . How in the world could that work or is it a typo?

 

[BukitCase]

If you follow Fallon's link, then click on the pic to enlarge it, it becomes obvious they've used inlet/outlet to mean "one of each" - there are two "bosses" on the pic at lower left and upper right, you can just see threads on the lower left one... Steve

 

[Fallon]

Here is my setup. I traded an old snowblower I bought for $100 for the compressor this fall to upgrade from a 30ish gallon one. The guy I traded for it said the stickers added 10mph...



I removed the outlet line from the compressor head & routed it to the top of the intercooler. The outlet of the intercooler drops into the tank via the 1 way valve mounted on the tanks at the stock location. I just used some zipties to hold the intercooler to the guard.



The intercooler is significantly overrated for my compressor (better to big than not big enough), so I had to put a 1" to 1/2" adapter in as well as putting a right angle NPT swivel fitting on so I could tighten one end without twisting the whole hose. I was thinking about putting a 1 way valve at the top of the intercooler so only the hose between the compressor head & intercooler would bleed off when the compressor shut off, but didn't. I thought about putting some kind of filter or trap between the intercooler & the tank to drain the water before it got to the tank. However I need to drain the tank anyway, so might as well just route all the water to 1 place & drain it there.

As it sits, any water removed by the intercooler will just drop into the tank. At the bottom of the tank I put an extension & a T. I stuck a ball valve on 1 side of the T to drain it easier. On the other side I've put the valve from the Harbor Freight auto-drain ($10 & drains the tank a bit every time the compressor cycles on or off), but haven't finished plumbing in the signal line up to the unloader line.

The regulator & filter on the outlet is actually catching some water now, but still not much.

After that more hydraulic hose runs to a desiccant filter on the wall. I plumbed in a couple 3 way valves so I can bypass it so I don't use it up if I'm doing something that I don't care about dry air for.

The intercooler isn't really different than you car radiator or any A/C condenser, other than the fittings & pressure ratings. I'd have used A/C gear or some kind of oil cooler if I could have found one really cheap that I'd trust to hold the pressure. A/C gear will definitely hold & most oil coolers should be rated for at least 70-80psi, so would be in the ballpark. But if I was going to buy something I figured I might as well buy one designed for the job rather than get something that wouldn't work quite right.

 

[Fallon]

Given the pedigree of my 3rd hand compressor I over-rated the intercooler & probably spent more on the hoses plumbing everything in than on the compressor. Intercooler & dryer were double the price of the compressor each. I figure I can easily re-use the cooling gear on my next compressor if this one dies or I manage to dicker my way into a better one.

 

[droptop]

After reading 21 pages of recommendations, I was surprised to find only a few mentions of Nylon Tubing. It was described as "truck air brake line". This is the same material, only not DOT certified. I ran 1/2" underground 100' to my house and the compressor in the basement. The whole perimeter of my barn has air lines with a 5 gal surge tank at the back, just for extra volume when running air tools. The fittings that you use are similar to shark bite fittings. These have been around for a long time, I used them when designing pneumatic systems for machine tools almost 20 years ago. Easy to work with, and inexpensive when compared to black iron. The other thing is that since the tubing is so smooth, the pressure drop is much smaller than black pipe. This stuff is made for air lines and is rated for 240psi @70F. I got all my fittings from Automation Direct and was lucky enough to find a 500' roll ugly yellow of tubing on Ebay for about $100.

Chances are you can do the whole job in the same time it would take you to put up 3 lengths of pipe and make sure you don't have leaks.

1/2 inch | AutomationDirect.com

Push-to-Connect Pneumatic Fittings (Thermoplastic) | AutomationDirect.com



Above ALL, as many others have stated, DO NOT USE PVC for pneumatic lines.

 

[ultrarunner]

I've plumbed a compressor to the front and rear of my service van in 1990 and used the nylon with press-on connectors... so far so good.

 

[blackdog2086]

After reading 21 pages of recommendations, I was surprised to find only a few mentions of Nylon Tubing. It was described as "truck air brake line". This is the same material, only not DOT certified. I ran 1/2" underground 100' to my house and the compressor in the basement. The whole perimeter of my barn has air lines with a 5 gal surge tank at the back, just for extra volume when running air tools. The fittings that you use are similar to shark bite fittings. These have been around for a long time, I used them when designing pneumatic systems for machine tools almost 20 years ago. Easy to work with, and inexpensive when compared to black iron. The other thing is that since the tubing is so smooth, the pressure drop is much smaller than black pipe. This stuff is made for air lines and is rated for 240psi @70F. I got all my fittings from Automation Direct and was lucky enough to find a 500' roll ugly yellow of tubing on Ebay for about $100.

Chances are you can do the whole job in the same time it would take you to put up 3 lengths of pipe and make sure you don't have leaks.

1/2 inch | AutomationDirect.com

Push-to-Connect Pneumatic Fittings (Thermoplastic) | AutomationDirect.com



Above ALL, as many others have stated, DO NOT USE PVC for pneumatic lines.

Not something I had originally considered, but I definitely will now. The thought of not having to connect and seal a bunch of 10' sections of pipe is definitely appealing. I'll have to start doing some research on it when I get a chance.