On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 11:50:30 -0600, Ignoramus11549
wrote:

I have a 10 HP compressor that we use quite a bit, so it accumulates a
fair amount of water in the tank.

The tank is a horizontal tank with a drain on the bottom.

I would like to find some good solution to draining that water that
would quietly drain water into a bucket. I recall seeing one drain
like this at some factory. I do not remember how it worked, but it was
some copper line from the compressor bottom, going up, then there was
something clever, and it drained nicely into a bucket.

A lot of "electronic" drains simply open a valve every 45 seconds. I
do not like this design, as it wastes air and is noisy.

Also note that if I drain the bottom of a horizontal tank, water would
be mixed with air, so the drain needs to be able to deal with that.

Any suggestions?

i

you want a muffler on the exhaust. how fancy do you want to get?
a 1/4 line going vertical to a long 2" pipe that slopes down to the
bucket would reduce noise a lot.

You could buy a stainless steel muffler with the same 1/4 line and not
even hear it

karl