How To Set Up Air Lines For Compressor

Plumbing serves a couple of purposes when it comes to your air compressor. Not only does it allow the air to become from point A to point B in your shop or garage, just it can likewise assistance to cool the air which assists in reducing moisture. This is very important for pulverization coating and sandblasting, likewise every bit whatever other pneumatic tool you may use including HVLP paint guns and standard air tools. The material you choose for your air lines and the way it is laid out can have a drastic effect on the amount of moisture coming out at the cease of your air hose as well as the CFM provided. This commodity will help y'all decide how to fix the air lines in your shop or garage.

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AIR LINE LAYOUT

At that place are a few bones guidelines when setting upwards your air compressor plumbing.  Most of these guidelines are for efficiency and ease of use, however some are for safety.  It is very of import that your air compressor plumbing is safe.  A burst pipage can be very dangerous or even deadly when it comes to compressed air.  If you do not feel comfortable designing or installing your air compressor plumbing yourself, information technology is best to accept a professional do it.

Disclaimer: This website and its owners are not responsible for any injuries or damages incurred from installing or using compressed air systems.

ane. There should exist a ball valve right at the outlet of the air compressor.  This allows you to shut the air off for the entire arrangement. If your air compressor plumbing ever gets damaged and bursts, you tin shut off the ball valve and only the air in air lines will be able to escape instead of having to wait for your entire air compressor to empty.  I shut off this ball valve whenever I will exist out of the garage for more than an hour. It is very like shooting fish in a barrel and cheap insurance.  It also allows y'all to make repairs or changes on your air lines without needing to drain the whole air compressor tank. The internal diameter of this ball valve should match the residuum of your air lines.  If yous utilize 1/ii" air lines, and so use a 1/2" ball valve.  Most air compressor outlets are larger than you lot'll demand and then yous will also demand an appropriately sized reducer for your ball valve.  A male x female ball valve is ideal since the outlet of your compressor is female and the outlet of the air hose is male.

two. If you are using a difficult material equally your air line such as copper or iron, there must exist a soft connexion from your air compressor to the pipe.  Air compressors create a lot of vibrations and if it is directly connected to your piping, all of the vibrations can lead to stresses in the pipes and maybe failure.  Instead, subsequently the brawl valve, you should install a short piece or air hose to connect to your pipe.  This short piece of hose is called a whip or lead-in hose and it serves to insulate your pipe from air compressor vibrations.  These tin can too be braided stainless to which are more resistant to the oestrus right at the get out of your air compressor. In the picture show below, you tin run into the air compressor outlet reducer, ball valve, and pb-in hose.

3.   Your piping should be sized accordingly based on the CFM output of your air compressor and the length of pipe you will be running. A drib in pressure can be expected through any pipe, but having a piping that is as well modest in bore for the length of the run required tin can atomic number 82 to likewise much pressure driblet. Below you lot fill detect a chart that will help you determine what diameter piping you should use.  For almost home pulverisation coaters or shops, yous'll most probable be using one/2", three/4", or 1" piping. When using larger bore pipe like 3/4" or 1", the unabridged organisation does not need to be this size. It is adequate to do the horizontal loop in the larger size and and then neck down to 1/2" for the drops.  It is okay to size your piping larger than needed without whatsoever negative furnishings, except cost. Some benefits of larger diameter piping is that it increases the overall capacity of your air compressor and information technology provides more surface area to the air, allowing the air to transfer more heat into the piping and so it can cool downward more quickly.  I personally utilize a very minimal amount of piping for my compressed air organization.  I have a two-machine garage with a lx gallon air compressor outputting most 12cfm @ 90psi.  My piping run is about 25 feet and I use i/two" diameter copper pipage, however, I could have used iii/4" diameter pipe as well. The only reason I didn't was to keep costs down.

4. You should aim to use as few elbows, Tee'due south, and connections as possible.  Every single plumbing fixtures y'all use contributes to pressure losses in your compressed air system and these should also be considered when choosing your piping size.  If you lot know you lot are going to need a lot of bends due to the layout of your space, and so it is best to go up at to the lowest degree one size in piping. The table beneath shows the pressure drib through some common compressed air fittings based on CFM and pipe diameter. (ELL refers to elbows).

5. The horizontal piping running around your space should not exist completely level and instead should exist sloped either away from or towards your air compressor. The choice of which way the pipes should slope has been debated virtually since the starting time of fourth dimension, so I will leave the option up to y'all. My thoughts are that it is all-time to gradient abroad from the compressor, so that the air carries wet towards the wet filter or drain. The well-nigh important matter is that the piping slopes, ideally about 1 inch every 50 feet. The reasoning for this is that you do not want water sitting stagnant anywhere in the pipes, and this is a possibility if the pipes are all level.

6. Design your system then that there are no low-spots where water can collect. Air compressor piping should all run from the top down and so that gravity tin can assist water downwards where information technology can exist nerveless or tuckered from the system. Horizontal pipes should be run overhead with vertical drops running down to the air outlets. These vertical pipes are called drops and these are where you will connect your filters, air hoses, etc. The amount of drops y'all have is a personal preference.  A store with multiple workers and a lot of surface area should have a lot more drops than a domicile garage. Merely proceed in heed, that every drop you accept should accept its own particle/wet filter to catch whatever moisture of debris earlier it runs into your air hoses and then in that location is a higher cost associated with each driblet you decide to add.

7.   Drops should all run off the top of the horizontal pipage and then curve back down.  The exception to this is the last drop unless y'all take a closed loop organization.  What this means, is that wherever you want a driblet, you should have a Tee coming pointing upwards on the horizontal pipage, then ii elbows to coming from the Tee to get it pointed downwards again, and then you can have your drop. Because yous make your air hose connections to the drops, it is best to minimize the amount of water that can enter the drops.  With the drops coming off the top of the horizontal run, most of the water in the horizontal run will remain in the horizontal run instead of running downward towards your drops.  Notice in the picture beneath, how each drib runs off the elevation of the horizontal run except for the last one.  The last one is where virtually of the water will collect and information technology can exist tuckered from the arrangement with a ball valve.

eight. Each drop should have a length of pipage and a ball valve at the end to collect and drain water.  Also, any connections you make to the drop should Tee off of the side of the driblet and run upwards.  This further allows gravity to assistance in making sure that all of the wet runs towards the bottom of the drib to exist drained. You lot can see in the picture below how this would work.

ix. Run at least 25 feet (more than is better) of piping before your commencement drop.  This initial piping earlier the drops allow the hot compressed air to cool downwardly assuasive the wet to condense into a liquid assuasive your wet filters to grab it.

x. Y'all should install unions in several locations throughout your compressed air piping if using copper, iron, or steel.  Unions allow you to hands separate the pipes using a threaded nut.  This allows you to easily disassemble your pipes for maintenance, additions, or removal.

Closed Loop or Linear Compressed Air Plumbing?

This refers to the horizontal run of pipes effectually your space.  A airtight loop organization runs up from your compressor and Tee'south into pipes running in both directions where it meets on the other side of the room. There is no beginning or end, just a continuous loop. This can be seen in the picture below.  This setup is ideal for larger garages or shops and specially if there is more than one person using compressed air at the same time.

A linear system is what can be institute in about home garages.  The pipe runs from the compressor and ends somewhere else in the garage. This is fine for i user with a short length of pipe that goes that has drops on one or ii walls.  Notwithstanding, if y'all have drops on 3 walls in a room with 4 walls, in that location is no reason non to complete the loop.  The benefit of this is that the drop that was originally furthest away from the air compressor with the highest pressure driblet, now has a much shorter path to the air compressor and will have much less pressure drop.

Compressed Air Line Materials

Air compressor pipes come in many materials, but the most mutual ones establish in a garage or shop are copper, black iron pipe, or a aluminum or polyethylene system similar RapidAir. Each of these accept their pro's and con'south. I will review each of these below.

I do not recommend PVC pipe as it can shatter sending shrapnel through the air.

Copper Pipe

Copper piping is one of the best choices for affordable compressed air piping. It is my first choice and what I would recommend so it will be discussed more than the other options. It is lightweight, corrosion resistant, somewhat easy to get together, and has a very smoothen diameter which reduces frictional pressure level losses with air. One of the about benign things about copper is that is an splendid textile to cool the compressed air flowing through the pipes.  This allows the moisture in the air to condense into a liquid allowing you to catch it with a h2o filter.  It is most commonly sold in x foot lengths from $14 to $20 depending on which type you go.  While the pipes themselves are more expensive than blackness atomic number 26 piping, the fittings are cheaper than iron fittings. One of the downsides to copper pipe is that it must exist soldered together.  Luckily, all of the tools required to do solder copper pipes and fittings are very inexpensive and there is not much of a learning curve.  The very beginning copper plumbing equipment I ever soldered in my life has never leaked and is still fine to this 24-hour interval.

Hard copper piping comes in three wall thicknesses.  Type M is the thinnest, so Type Fifty, and Blazon K is the thickest.  Type M or L pipe will concluding many years in home garages or shops. I have had no bug with the thinnest Type M copper pipe in my dwelling house garage only in a shop, where the copper piping has more of a risk of being bashed up against by something, Type 50 copper pipage would be more suitable. If you lot want to play it very condom and don 't listen spending the actress money, there is Type Chiliad copper pipe.

How to Solder Copper Pipe and Fittings:

1. First the copper pipes must be cut to the desired length using an accordingly sized tubing cutter.

2. The cutting will leave an edge on the inside diameter of the pipes that must be removed before soldering, this tin be washed with a de-burring tool.

3. Once your cut is made, you must remove any oxidation from the pipes where it inserts into the plumbing fixtures.  This should be done by using emery cloth on the outside of the copper pipe and the fitting until the copper is shiny. The offset inch or and so of the inside of the pipes and fitting also need to be cleaned until shiny.  This can be washed with an appropriately sized wire brush that fits your pipe.

4. At present that your pipes are cut and cleaned, you lot volition apply a very light coat of soldering flux on the exterior of the copper pipes and on the inside of the plumbing fixtures.  This only needs to be applied where the two meet together. Do this for each pipe and you can then press them together. Make sure the pipe is fully seated into the fitting before standing.  Wipe off whatsoever excess flux. I highly recommend the tinning flux linked above equally it is very easy to get a leak free solder articulation.

5. You must gear up the entire plumbing equipment before soldering.  If you are using an elbow fitting, you lot must have ii copper pipes prepped, fluxed, and inserted into each end of the elbow earlier soldering. If using a 3-mode tee fitting, then three copper pipes prepped, fluxed, and inserted into each hole before soldering and and so on. You do not take to build your entire pipe system all at in one case earlier soldering, but the fitting must exist completely assembled.

6. To practice the actual soldering, you will need a propane torch head and propane cylinder. While the heads are cheaper online, the propane tanks are just almost $four at your local hardware shop. You will utilise your propane torch to heat up the middle of the copper fitting, do not aim it at the solder articulation. Unroll a length of solder and hold it on the joint on the reverse side of the flame.  In one case the joint is hot enough, the solder and start to flow into the joint. Get-go to movement the solder effectually the joint until the entire joint is soldered.  You practise not want to add too much as it can glob upwardly inside the joint.  Once you lot terminate soldering one side of the end, motility your copper to the side by side side of the same plumbing equipment and echo. One time all sides of the one plumbing fixtures are soldered, you can remove the torch from the joint.  If the next joint y'all are about to solder is close to the previous joint, you can wrap a wet rag around the completed joint to go on information technology from re-melting. If you have to solder close to a wall you tin hang up a soldering pad on the wall to prevent burning the place downward.

7. Once your solder joint is completed, wipe the joint with a clammy rag to remove any excess flux.  The flux is acidic and if left on the pipage, can cause corrosion.  Also inspect the solder articulation to ensure that is filled in completely.

Here is an excellent video to lookout before you lot start soldering:

It seems like a lot of steps only in one case yous get the process down, it really is not difficult. I did all of my copper air compressor plumbing for the offset fourth dimension in one nighttime, and I have never had a leak.




Amalgam Copper Pipage Plumbing

Selecting the copper fittings you need for your air compressor plumbing is also pretty simple.  The well-nigh important affair is to size your fittings according to the diameter of copper pipe that you chose. 1/ii" piping fits 1/two" fittings, 3/4" pipage fits iii/4" fittings, etc.  Easy stuff.  Here are some basic fittings that you volition need to plumb your air compressor, all example links and pictures are 1/two" size:

ninety Caste Copper Elbows

These are pretty self-explanatory.  They come up in curt radius and long radius.  The longer radius elbows menses a little better and are a piddling more than expensive.

Copper Tee Plumbing fixtures

These can come in ane uniform size such as 1/2" 10 12" x 1/two" or they can have a combination of sizes in one fitting such as 3/4" x one/ii" 10 3/4".  If using three/4" or one" piping, you can neck down to i/ii" copper piping for the drops unless you have a very large compressor and are moving some serious air. The film below shows a pipage zig-zag which is used to cool the compressed air in an attempt to remove moisture. You can come across where the tee fittings are needed.

Copper Male Threaded Fitting

The male threaded fittings let you to make connections to anything with female person NPT threads.  This includes air filters, water separators, hose reels, ball valves, etc.

Copper Pipe Wall Mounts

These are not a fitting, but are very handy for mounting your copper pipe to the wall and they are very cheap. They mountain the pipe away from the wall so you don't accept to worry virtually vibrations. These mount to the wall with a single  screw. Ideally you would mount these to the studs in your walls, which tin can be located easily with a magnetic stud finder. Nonetheless, if that is not possible, they can be mounted anywhere on drywall with some standard drywall anchors.

That pretty much sums of copper pipe as a way to plumb your air compressor throughout your piece of work space.  With the above info, y'all should take merely well-nigh everything you need to go pattern and get together your compressors plumbing. At present onto the other popular selection for plumbing.

Black Atomic number 26 Pipe

Black iron pipage is another pop selection for plumbing an air compressor.  It can be slightly cheaper than copper piping and it is very heavy duty.  Instead of needing to be soldered together like copper pipe, it is threaded together. Y'all tin can buy it at the local hardware store in 10 foot sections.

The downside of black fe pipe is that the interior of the pipe is decumbent to corrosion from the moisture your air compressor produces.  They will still terminal a very long time, but a skilful air filter is a must to grab any debris from the pipes corroding. Some other downside is the tools needed to assemble them which tin can exist somewhat expensive.  These pipes need to be threaded in social club to assemble and they must exist tightened very tight to keep them from leaking. You will need some specialized tools to thread blackness iron pipage, or another pick is if yous purchase it locally at Home Depot or Lowes, they volition cut and thread the pipe to your specifications for free as long as you buy the pipe from them.  Call your local shop to ostend that they do this earlier planning out your black iron piping plumbing.

If you lot make up one's mind you want to tackle threading the pipes yourself to avoid a bunch of trips to Domicile Depot, you volition need an appropriately sized tubing cutter to cutting the pipe to the desired length, an appropriately sized piping reamer to deburr and smooth the cutting, and an appropriately sized pipage threader to cutting threads into the pipe.  Yous will likewise demand pipe threading oil to lubricate and cool the tool every bit its threading. Harbor Freight also sells a discounted pipe threader if you want to try that route, just make certain to save your receipt because information technology doesn't accept the best reviews.

Once y'all have your threaded pipes and fittings, you lot can begin assembly. Brand certain to include lots of wedlock fittings throughout the system. If you don't use whatever spousal relationship fittings and you decide you want to do something like add together a quick connect fitting in the middle of the organization, you lot will have to take apart all of the piping, starting from the end, upward until that point. And and so reassemble information technology all.  A set of spousal relationship fittings allows yous to make changes inside the plumbing without needing to do lots of dissembling.

To get together the pipes, you volition demand at least 2 pipe wrenches to tighten the pipes together.  You will too demand teflon tape or piping articulation compound, ordinarily referred to as pipe dope, to make the threaded connections air-tight. Piping dope seems to be superior to eflon tape as it usually seals better and at that place is no risk of trivial shreds of teflon tape running through the plumbing and getting defenseless in your air tools.  When assembling the pipes and fittings, you utilise the pipe dope to both the male and female threaded sections of the pipe and hand tighten them.  Then tighten a pipe wrench around the pipe and some other one around the plumbing fixtures and tighten the crap out of them.

Keep in mind that black atomic number 26 piping is heavy and it needs to be securely mounted to the wall.  I would recommend mounting it direct to the studs whenever possible.

RapidAir Systems: Aluminum or Polyethylene

RapidAir among other companies offering set-made kits that offer a several lengths of pipe and decent selection of fittings.  They make these kits with either aluminum piping (RapidAir FastPipe) or polyethylene tubing (RapidAir Maxline).  I strongly recommend the aluminum pipe over the polyethylene kit.  The polyethylene material does accept a thin layer of aluminum sandwiched in the middle of the material but it is more to give the pipe form and non so much for helping to absorb oestrus from the compressed air.  Removing oestrus from the compressed air allows the moisture to drib out of intermission where information technology can be caught by a water separator.

The aluminum FastPipe systems from rapid air are a very nice kit however.  Aluminum is very good at absorbing the heat from the compressed air allowing the moisture to drop out of pause and it is a nice and lightweight material that is resistant to corrosion.  The pipe comes in either 3/4" or 1" so is suitable for large air compressors. The system looks very professional person and systems like it are often used in big manufacturing plants. The piping is also powder coated blue, so the slight gamble of the aluminum ever corroding is not a worry. Another great thing compared to the other pipe materials is that you lot don't really demand whatever specialized tools with this kit.

The downside of the aluminum RapidAir system is that it is a little more expensive than assembling your own copper pipe or black fe pipage system.  All the components available in the arrangement are sold individually if yous ever desire to expand or change your compressed air plumbing, however they are somewhat costly and not much is available locally. Other than those couple of cons, information technology is a very nice system and looks great in whatsoever shop / garage.

 Conclusion

With the advice from this commodity, yous should be well on your fashion to setting up the plumbing for your air compressor. Call back that a good compressed air organization can make life much easier while powder blanket in your garage or store.  You lot can pattern a arrangement that eliminates moisture in your compressed air and besides offers you convenient quick connect couplers wherever you need them.

To help design the system, make certain to as well read How to Dry out Compressed Air as the concepts from that article should be included in your plumbing design. If yous have not still purchased an air compressor, check out Choosing an Air Compressor.

Thanks for reading!

How To Set Up Air Lines For Compressor,

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