I have been trying to use my new (Christmas Present) Harbor Freight Bead Blaster Cabinet, and I am having troubles with condensation in the air line. The beads keep clotting up at the nozzle and the suction is gone. I have an inline filter / dryer but there is just no way for it to keep up with the demand. After the compressor runs for a while it heats up and so does the air, which holds moisture as a vapor very well. Once the air travels the thirty feet or so to my blast cabinet it cools off and the moisture precipitates out into the nozzle of the blast gun.
I have been Googling and have come up with several ideas; from putting the air hose in a bucket of ice water to making a home made refrigerated air dryer to using expansion tank to cool off the air and drop out the moisture. I haven't fully decided which way I am going with this, but I think I know which way I am leaning.
I'm going to try mounting an ac condenser out of an old truck on the back side of the compressor motor mount frame, and getting another air tank as an expansion tank. I will pipe the hot air from the compressor's main tank at 125 psi into the ac condenser, having it function as a heat exchanger - dropping temperature, using soft copper pipe and putting a coil or two in it for vibration. Then pipe from the condenser through another regulator into an expansion tank at 90 psi dropping pressure and therefore temperature once again. The air entering the expansion tank will come into the lower portion of the side of the tank. The air leaving the expansion tank will come off the top and go through a filter / moisture separator and out to the shop. I will keep you posted on my progress. See the drawing below.
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