Very impressive and well thought out. My only reservation is the need for a drop line drain after the copper tubing before the oil cooler. If not you are sending back into the oil cooler all of that condensation. Great job. Thanks I plan to duplicate your idea

By far one of the best tutorials on air compressor condensation removal that I have seen ... thanks a mint Sir !!!

Nice video. I did mine exactly opposite using the radiator first, then 2 auto draining HF Water Separators like you have after the small one. Then I ran the output of those into the tank, output of tank to a custom made 2" Rigid Pipe additional Separator and Desiccant Dryer, back to a 3 in line filter assembly that I swapped the the micro particulate to the last position to catch any desiccant dust leaving the trap area, then to my lines with dual feeds with a gate valve. 1 is totally clean dry air, the other one is an oiler tank for my air tools. The clean dryed air is used for Painting and a Plasma Table. Not a fish eye in site. My next project is to build a vapor blasting cabinet, with glass beads and a water feed with a dust bunny catcher like on your cabinet. The reason I used Rigid pipe is my compressor is rated for 200 PSI and rigid pipe is good up to 300 PSI. The Desiccant Viewing windows (1 top /1 bottom) is rated at 250 PSI.

You went all out on this. I like it. The only thing I would change, and someone below mentioned it; The restrictions cause by all the coolers/radiators. I would double up. Large compressor lines feeding 2 cooling system lines so air volume is not as hindered. Or just save for an air dryer

Good idea with the copper coil. However, there is no way for the water to get out of the coils. You need to come down with the first coil and go into a tee fitting. On the other side of the tee, you connect the tubing and come back up, winding in the opposite direction. You end up with a double helix. Air enters the top and coils down, connecting to the left side of a tee. Then from the right side, you coil back up and out the top. At the bottom of the tee you put a copper tube and ball valve that sticks out the bottom of the bucket. This way, the water that condenses will flow down in both coils and exit at the bottom. I designed this several years ago and I’m using an 8” PVC pipe to hold the water and double helix. The pipe ends are sealed with discs of PVC foam and secured with long bolts that connect top and bottom on the outside. I run 50/50 water antifreeze through the PVC pipe and it circulates through a radiator in a mini fridge. It works very well. Wish I could send a drawing. But you need a drain at the bottom of your coil at the very least.

Looks great Chris, yes the fridge, would make a huge difference, I'm on the east coast of Australia and back in the 70's to the 90's many workshops used to run drinking water in the same way through a fridge and you could have cold water like a keg, you can run a filter too & it's nice on a hot day, same principle. I look forward to seeing how you go, my compressor has a inbuilt drier & then 2 water traps after that in the lines, i just have clear hose, so you can monitor what comes out. 👍

I loved your solution. It is really hard core! You are using the heat transfer properties of water being 24x that of air to make a much more efficient heat removal compared with some of the vertical pipe systems people have done. As others have mentioned, I'd add a trap at the bottom of the copper coil, and maybe put your auto drain on that. It would reduce any water that your final filter would need to take care of. I doubt your compressor tank would collect any water - could be done manually. I haven't done any calculations but a copper coil from HD with a 1/2" ID offers a low pressure loss. I'll try without the oil cooler first since that adds about $130 to the project. A bit of salt in the bucket would keep stuff from growing in it.

Great system. I want to put one in for my everlast plasma cutter.

Great system, seems like getting the copper tube very hot was the whole point and having it in water should remove the most heat. One interesting thing is how much water would be released once it expands into the tank. I think the colder the air going into the tank, the more water would be released once it expand into the tank. The think about releasing the water into the tank is that it's released into the compressed air that's already in the tank. So as the tank goes up in pressure, it's less effective. Having a release tank prior to the main tank solve this. You'd have to have a water separator before the main storage tank.

Ive been planing something along similar design ideas, but never thought about the distilation gear. I have a 20,000L water tank under my workshop which I could run copper lines through and it would cool the air down to no more than 20degC. Thanks for the tips.

Great video, and you just gave me some new ideas! I am trying to design my own system for my body shop right now. I like the idea of mounting the radiator behind the fan on the compressor, using the energy already being spent to lower the heat of the air. I looked at some copper coils at Lowe's, and they have a 10' coil for around $25, and a 20' coil for about $45. I had also thought about submerging the coil in a bucket. My only reservation is, where does the condensed water go from that point? I would add a drop leg after the coil, with a petcock valve or the automatic water separator valve like what you've done. But I REALLY like the idea of using a refrigerator. I have converted a 5,500 sq ft garage into my current body shop, and it used to have 1,000 sq ft as an apartment. I converted the apartment space into my paint booth (where the living room and bedroom were). There's a kitchen off to the left of this space, right in the middle, and I have a working fridge. I could plumb my line right to the fridge, and back out to the wall. The only thing I need to do is figure out how you could drill the holes in the fridge and seal them up. That's my next task! I think I would probably put the coil inside of the fridge, or the freezer perhaps. Then I could run the output to a drop leg and put the water trap at the bottom. Great video!

Great job Venom Chris! Can you provide a link for the water separator that automatically drains when the compressor stops? Thanks.

If you didn’t want to disturb any pipes on your compressor I bet it would work good on the opposite end of your compressor where the air exits the compressor. I have same air compressor and have a fan blowing directly on the head of the pump and I’m going to do the same rig as you got there but on the opposite end where the air leaves the tank. So with the fan blowing directly on the head of the pump and the chiller on the exit side of the tank between the exit point and air line I think it will work just great. Just my opinion all thoughts welcome

I'm trying to do mine. The fitting going into the tank and the one coming out of the pump are males and were connected to each other with copper tubing and female compression nuts on each end. How do you convert the compression to npt? I have a male compression need to adapt to a male npt. I keep buying fittings that don't fit. The copper tubing supplied on the compressor is 1/2 inch but smaller than the 1/2 inch pipe I bought so how did you sweat those together?

Awesome setup but you definitely did not need to add a transmission cooler. That's actually warming up the air!! by the time it goes through all that copper tubing in the 5 gallon water bucket It's cold your home never heat that bucket of water up. You would have to run that compressor non-stop all day

Clean and fill two milk jugs water and freeze them. Put one in the center of that coil in the morning and perhaps replace it at lunch with the other. It's almost free and you can forego the purchase of the tiny fridge.

Nice job Chris! I do not know the answer so do not think I am just being a smart.... guy.. when the hot air is coming out of the compressor with moisture in it and then the coolers create condisation in the pipes. The condisation then via gravity flows to the lowest location. Maybe the bottom of the coil? Other than blowing it out how do you setup a gravity / automatic blowout system?

How do you plan on getting water out of the copper coil? I would imagine that even with everything you’ve got upstream of it, you will get some condensate n there and it will need a place to go. I work HVAC/R so my thought would have been to braze in some sort of simple drain valve at the lowest point on the coil.

Could you have routed the 1/4” drain off of the primary moisture separator into the 5 gal bucket rather than onto the floor?

Not sure if thus is an issue. You have air running through that copper coil in the bucket. How does the water condensing inside the copper coil drain? If the air entered the top of the coil and exited via gravity this into a tee with a downward dog leg that had a auto drain. Then you could drain most of the water before it ever hit the separator ✌️

Can you say... overkill? lol. I live in NYS and it does get super humid in the summer. I use a 10 foot single run of 1/2 inch copper, and then about another 8 feet worth of a cupper U shape with a drain, then up to a two stage filter and I get just about no water at all... How the heck do you need all of this?

Just wonder why you are concerned about humidity with wet sand blasting ? Or maybe you’re also painting or dry blasting ?

Did anyone ever use refrigeration copper y bends instead of 90s and tees to make a compressor air dryer just wondering if it would work

On the copper in the bucket have you got any pin holes from copper fibrating or is wear minimal there ? Just curious

What are the temps at the bucket exit and the fin cooler exit? I'm thinking you should have used the fin cooler first and the bucket cooler second. The fin cooler brings the temp to ambient then the bucket gets it even cooler. Make sure the fin cooler isn't heating the air back up to ambient temp. You could try just keeping fresh water in the bucket, its probably cheaper than running a fridge which may not be powerful enough anyway. Second, how fast does the water in the bucket heat up? Just drop a 2 liter bottle of ice in the bucket see how long that last. My theory is that once you've cooled the compressor air to 70 F, and extract the condensated moisture out, you've got most of it out already. I really like your approach. Installing the cooler and separator before the tank gets the moisture out more efficiently that the videos that install a tubing separator system after the tank. Thanks for the video.

Oh also forgot might fill the bucket with windshield wash so it don’t freeze in the winter time what your thought on. It

Nice job ! Was wondering how long the pressure valve bleeds out now with all the extended plumming? Gona do my compresser trying to fiqure the best method.

The link for the coil on ebay is not functional anymore. Any other alternative placrs for that coil?

I have a spare freezer, I gonna do the same, fill a big tank with water and have pipe run through it.

How do you empty the water at the bottom of the coil?

All those fittings by your compressor are offer no buffering for the viberation. In other words down the road your going to have a failure at that point. You need a vibration damper of some sort.

I feel it's better to have one stage compressor because a 2 stage compressor heats air up twice,,it will boost your pressure but not your CFMs.

How about some ice in the bucket .... a 32ounze frozen cup...

I will do you one better I wouldn’t fill that bucket with water. I would use antifreeze because the water will get stagnant after a while the antifreeze won’t . Plus it’ll cool way better than the water just a suggestion.🛠

I think that coil in the bucket is going to prove more trouble than it's worth. I don't think a small fridge or even a big one has the BTUs to move enough heat to keep up. That's even before you figure a way to transfer the heat out of the bucket water into the refrigerator. A radiator and fan inside the refrigerator? You mentioned already being strapped for space. So let's say you solve the heat moving capacity and heat transfer problem. You'll likely be well outside of the refrigerators designed duty cycle. It will die in short order. My bet is, you would be better served by getting rid of the bucket coil and just getting more air over the trans cooler. Worst case adding another trans cooler as well.

You could also put ice in your bucket.

I did mine 2 years ago with 1/2 coil copper tubing from my pump to tank,, I was going to use condener,,but noticed the restriction of air flow from reducing from 1/2 piping on compressor to the 3/8 tubing in condener,, your going to create backflow to your compressor head and shorten it's life...

And you just reduced your CFM s by 1/3 with your restrictions

Fill the bucket with ice...

Cut a port in the top of the bucket itself. Install a small 110 v fan ( like some in small soda coolers) wire the fan to the pressure switch so it comes on with the compressor. Drill a few vent holes around the bottom of the bucket. Should eliminate the need for water cooling

Lmao 🤣🤣 refrigerator 🤷🏻‍♂️ You might as well put some beer through that copper tube also if you're going to refrigerate that air

contact info?

Your lines are to thin diameter,,,never go less then it was intended for,,the cooler looks to be 3/8,, and people don't realize 2 stage gives you high pressure not volume,,, I always use one stage,,2 stage compresses air twice making air hotter and resulting in more condensation,, I just used the 1/2 copper coils from head to separator to tank.and dropped my temperature from 170 to 90 degrees and no more condensation that concurred when hot air enter cooler tank. The is traveling so fast the water really does nothing. And if you try blowing air through transmission cooler as I did you will see the restricted flow as I did,,and all it will do as put strain on compressor head and with the back pressure,,,many are having head gasket problems doing what you did as well as shortening the life span.

Super overkill and super expensive.

Man, you really need to Google "KISS Method" before you touch another tool