Sometime back (a few years now I think) I bought an HF refrigeration
type air dryer off of Ebay. When the item didn't show up when it should
I contacted the seller. Again now show so I emailed him. It went on
like that for a few days. He never emailed or messaged me back to start
with. Then all of a sudden I wound up with four of them. I only paid
for one.

They all seemed to ship from a warehouse in Chicago that I think is
owned by Harbor Freight. He may have been an agent resellers for HF and
didn't have direct control of the inventory.

I suppose I could have been dishonest and just kept them, but I messaged
the sellers and asked him why I now had four (4) air dryers. He asked
me to ship them back, but my cost for shipping would have been
exorbitant. I asked about a deal to keep one to have on the shelf as a
spare. He made me a smoking deal so I kept all of them and paid him.

I then resold two of them and more than the cost of the two I kept. It
turned out Harbor Freight didn't have any more (at the time) and the
guys who bought them had already tried Harbor Freight. One drove over
to Yuma from Mes, and the other came from Lake Havasu, and both were
thankful to get them.

Well, now some years later my spare is still in the box on the shelf,
aad the original is still working just fine. I did put in on a stand
and drill a hole int eh bottom of the case so the drain line wouldn't
act like a trap sometimes keeping the internal separator from draining.

I think I may be reaching the capacity of the dryer. Particularly on
humid days. No I haven't seen any moisture in downstream separators
(one at every machine), but it just feels like it. The only time I had
a moisture problem was when a 3 coupling block blew out of a manifold
and the system ran at capacity for the whole time I was eating lunch in
the house. It took me two days to get the moisture out of the lines and
equipment to my satisfaction. Anyway, it works, but I may be near
capacity. I am getting ready to add another spindle with an air seal,
but that doesn't use as much air as you might think. The big deal is I
am seriously considering adding a permanent air blast on the machine I
use most of the time for milling steel.

ALL of the preceding information was background. I'm not asking for
validations on any of it. LOL.

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.

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

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI

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.

On Thu, 26 Sep 2019 08:36:03 -0700, Bob La Londe
wrote:

Sometime back (a few years now I think) I bought an HF refrigeration
type air dryer off of Ebay. When the item didn't show up when it should
I contacted the seller. Again now show so I emailed him. It went on
like that for a few days. He never emailed or messaged me back to start
with. Then all of a sudden I wound up with four of them. I only paid
for one.

They all seemed to ship from a warehouse in Chicago that I think is
owned by Harbor Freight. He may have been an agent resellers for HF and
didn't have direct control of the inventory.

I suppose I could have been dishonest and just kept them, but I messaged
the sellers and asked him why I now had four (4) air dryers. He asked
me to ship them back, but my cost for shipping would have been
exorbitant. I asked about a deal to keep one to have on the shelf as a
spare. He made me a smoking deal so I kept all of them and paid him.

I then resold two of them and more than the cost of the two I kept. It
turned out Harbor Freight didn't have any more (at the time) and the
guys who bought them had already tried Harbor Freight. One drove over
to Yuma from Mes, and the other came from Lake Havasu, and both were
thankful to get them.

Well, now some years later my spare is still in the box on the shelf,
aad the original is still working just fine. I did put in on a stand
and drill a hole int eh bottom of the case so the drain line wouldn't
act like a trap sometimes keeping the internal separator from draining.

I think I may be reaching the capacity of the dryer. Particularly on
humid days. No I haven't seen any moisture in downstream separators
(one at every machine), but it just feels like it. The only time I had
a moisture problem was when a 3 coupling block blew out of a manifold
and the system ran at capacity for the whole time I was eating lunch in
the house. It took me two days to get the moisture out of the lines and
equipment to my satisfaction. Anyway, it works, but I may be near
capacity. I am getting ready to add another spindle with an air seal,
but that doesn't use as much air as you might think. The big deal is I
am seriously considering adding a permanent air blast on the machine I
use most of the time for milling steel.

ALL of the preceding information was background. I'm not asking for
validations on any of it. LOL.

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.

Buy yourself a box of 5/8 copper tubing and without uncoiling it..
attach one end to your compressor output and the other end to your
refridgerated dryer. Then hang the coil behing the compressor fan so
it has air blowing through the coil. This will condense a ****load of
the moisture before it gets to the dryer..be the dryer a refridgerated
one or a mechanical one. Its best if you can get liquid to the dryer
as it doesnt have to work as hard.

Here in So Cal..humidity can be from 5% to 90% depending on the time
of year. Shrug. I installed a Kaiser screw compressor last year in
the shop and will be adding a second one at the other end to take up
the load. I have the coil of 5/8" between the compressor and the dryer
and we are seeing zero water issues, where before we were losing
solenoids on the CNC stuff ever couple months.

Need any more reefer dryers..I have a couple spares we have surplus.

Gunner
__

"Poor widdle Wudy...mentally ill, lies constantly, doesnt know who he is, or even what gender "he" is.

No more pathetic creature has ever walked the earth. But...he is locked into a mental hospital for the safety of the public.

Which is a very good thing."

Asun rauhassa, valmistaudun sotaan.


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