Refrigerated Air Dryer

[The-Meerkat]

I’ve been interested in upgrading the quality of the air going to my plasma cutter and have looked at different options. I recently found a smaller used Curtis Refrigerated Air Dryer on EBay for $150 and bought it. It arrived last week. I had to buy and install a few pipe fittings from the hardware store before hooking it up this weekend for a test run. I made sure the air dryer was completely drained prior to testing. I set a timer and ran it off my big 16 SCFM compressor with an 80 gallon storage. (I drained the 80 gallon tank before testing too). I restricted the air pressure down to 65 PSI which is the rate my Powermax 65 uses air. I ran the compressor and air dryer for 1 hour. When the time was up, I drained the air dryer again to see what had collected. The results were impressive. The air dryer collected a respectable couple ounces of water. Surprisingly, it also collected a fair amount of oil that I noticed in the bottom of the glass when I dumped the water out.

I consider this a successful test. I will be adding the Curtis Air Dryer to my air supply system between my primary canister water separator and the Powermax 65 which has its own little water separator built in.

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[acourtjester]

Small error is the Hypertherm 65 need more than 65 PSI for good cutting, Jim recommends a gauge at the rear of the hyperther to show about 100 psi with no drop when cutting. Do a search here for his post.

[The-Meerkat]

Thanks acourtjester. I’ve got plenty of air pressure and over 2X replenishment rate available. I could keep the pressure steady up to a max 150 psi indefinitely. No issues there. I normally keep the psi choked down to 115 coming out of my primary canister dryer. That drop pulls a lot of water out. For this test, I purposely lowered the psi going to the refrigerated air dryer to try simulating the amount of air that would be passing through it. Extracting more water to produce drier air is my only goal here. I’m just sharing the test results. Success! I’m liking this little refrigerated air dryer. That said, I’ll connect the Curtis dryer to the cutter later this week and test it again at 100 psi. You got me curious.

[acourtjester]

the drier should be able to function at normal PSI and flow to remove the water as its designed capacity

[The-Meerkat]

Agreed. Thanks again acourtjester.

[TJS]

I have to get me one of them soon.