On 9/27/2019 7:16 AM, Leon Fisk wrote: On Thu, 26 Sep 2019 08:36:03 -0700
Bob La Londe wrote:

snip
Here is the quandry. Could I double my dry air capacity (pretty sure I
could) by just tying in my spare air dryer in parallel with the first?
Sure thee would be double regulators and double other hardware and
plumbing at the compressor, but what other drawbacks might there be?

I currently close a valve at the tank drain the lines, and shut off my
air dryer every day at the end of the day. This allows it to fully
drain, although it periodically drains when in use.

I was hoping someone else would chip in with a good answer...

I would think you would want to put them in series, not parallel. First
unit would bring it down to say 50, then second would bring it down
some more. In parallel I suspect it would be difficult to control the
flow between the two equally. Say for instance one failed or only
worked half as well as the other. Then the output would be no better
than the worst of the two negating one of them running perfectly...

The other choice would be to plumb their input in parallel but split
the outputs to different sets of machines (shrug).

I'm no expert, just some random thinking out loud


Its parallel to some of my own thoughts. I thought that if I had one
fail I might just close the valves to that unit, but if a unit fails I
still have to dry everything out again.

If I needed lab** air I might run them in series, but I don't think it
would help with volume. If the air goes through to fast they just don't
dry it. Like when I had a triple tap block blow out of a wall manifold.
(The nipple actually broke. I am using the triple tap elsewhere.)

**If I was running lab air I think I would still have to run a double
stack auto switching desiccant drier (one stack heated, one stack
flowing) as well with a reserve tank for the "lab" area.

Lab is used generically. Not to indicate truly clean air.

I am sure a refrigeration type drier/dryer (both work in my spell
checker) only makes the air "pretty dry." Not really dry.

You know I could use the output to feed one of my HPA compressors and
see how much less moisture is squeezed out to fill an SCBA bottle
compared to just open air input. I bet the HPA compressor would fill
faster anyway. LOL. My SCBA bottles are used for pneumatic rifles.
Not for breathing air.