Anyone know about Air Compressors?

[eric]

Cool!! That qualifies as having a "sh***y" job You kind look like you are coming up for freash air!

But you must LOVE diving to do it. I had a friend who was a real "sh*t" shoveler. He shovled it at the horse stables at the track. THAT! was a sh**y job!

 

[JD Morgan]

Cool!! That qualifies as having a "sh***y" job You kind look like you are coming up for freash air!

But you must LOVE diving to do it. I had a friend who was a real "sh*t" shoveler. He shovled it at the horse stables at the track. THAT! was a sh**y job!

 

[dr bob]

Heck if you are going that route you may as well go to the welding shop and get a tank of nitrogen like I did. Hook up a regulator to it made for the high psi, an acetlene rig will usually suffice. Only cost a few dollars for a refill.

I’ve been monitoring for a day, and seen some rather bizarre ideas. Gary's suggestion is a most ideal one. As he stated the regulator is the most expensive and AFAIK the tank is relatively cheap and the gas very cheap. I have ysed this system for decades with great success. I have a couple of compressors (one is a diaphragm compressor-vacuum) and both require extensive moisture trapping and filtration at least for air brushing (I used to make model train stuff).

Nitrogen/argon tank gas is almost pure with no danger of entrained water or oil. It is available in most welding shops or directly from the supplier. I have Lindy or whoever deliver to my door.

 

[steve]

I do a lot of painting and providing clean, dry air is a pain. I have a commercial level compressor and run a water trap, a 5 micron particulate filter, and a coalescing filter.

The water trap takes out about 50 percent of the moisture, the particulate filter is good for dust particles, the coalescing filter takes out the rest of the water and any oil from the compressor.

For the price of those filters alone, you could get a nitrogen or CO2 tank, and a dual guage setup. The "air" will be cleaner and dryer than what you'll get out of a compressor setup. The dual guage setup will allow you read the pressure in the tank (guage 1) and set the outflow pressure (guage 2). If you want do it differently, get a guage and a flow meter.

With a flow meter, you can set a very low constant flow rate (like 5 or 10 cubic feet per hour). With a dual guage setup, you would set the out going gas pressure in pounds per square inch or Pascals (if you're metrically inclined).

If you go the guage route, make sure the guages are compatible with the type of gas you're using. The orfice sizes are different inside the guages to account for the different gas types. In other words, you don't want to use an acetylene guage with nitrogen.

Flow meters are a different deal. They don't really care about the gas type, the just flow the amount of gas you set.

 

[Canuck]

Just another alternative. A friend has used a CO2 tank (for carbonated soda fountains ... big stuff) for many a years for blowing off dust. Clean and not expensive (since he had the tank already) to fill when he ran out.