I own a Tuxing inline oil/water filter that (obviously, as it's name states) separates and moisture or vaporized oil molecules from the air that comes out of the compressor I own. Well, a few weeks back I had the compressor on the high pressure side (it's a dual stage, dual piston compressor) catastrophically fail on me, so I ordered 4 new pistons from our "friends" across the pond (i.e. China). After receiving the pistons on Thursday, I installed the new one yesterday. I always (historically) filled my scuba tank with the inline filter to make sure I was putting clean air into the tank, and in turn, clean air into my rifle. Well, interestingly enough, I went to fill my tank yesterday. I always run the compressor for 4 or 5 minutes to get everything warmed up before I put a load on it. This "warm up" period is all of the components hooked up, minus the tank. Well, I noticed something strange.... The pressure compressor needed to be at 400 psi before I got a sufficient air flow to start moving through the inline filter. This makes sense to a degree for me, since there's a multitude of layers that it needs to push through before the air reaches the other side. But 400 psi seems somewhat excessive. So I decided to investigate this further.
My filter has 3" of cylindrical cotton near the entrance, 4 or 5 inches of desiccant (the color changing kind) in the middle, and another 3" of cotton at the exiting end. There's stainless steel mesh separating the different elements in the filter. But I decided to pull it apart, and I discovered that only the first piece of cotton showed ANY signs of staining or "wear" from the process. The desiccant is purple, and when it gets wet, it turns pink. It's commercial grade. I have a gallon container of it. I use it at my work for various purposes. But it's VERY sensitive to moisture. You can definitely tell when it gets wet. It goes from a royal blue / purple color to a hot pink color. But when I pulled the filter apart, there was ZERO evidence of moisture. My compressor has a water moisture trap on it. Every time I drain the trap, there's a LOT of moisture that comes out. There's no way the trap captures ALL of the moisture though. I guess the point that I'm trying to make is I don't think the huge inline filters are necessary. I think they are overkill. Air Venture makes a small, inline filter that I just ordered.
The other issue with the large filter is the volume of the filter in and of itself. It's like airing up an additional .35L air tank on top of whatever else you're airing up. And it's not like taking the tank from 3000psi to 4500psi. You're going from zero to 4500. So in my opinion it's enormously wasteful, and puts unnecessary time and stress on the compressor- which already operates teetering on the verge of component failure.
So I'm going to start using the smaller inline filter when filling my tanks. I'm going to replace the stock Buna-N o-rings with cast disogrin polyurethane o-rings that have a shear strength of 6,000psi, and can handle pressures up to 10,000 psi. Then I can push the filter to 4600 psi instead of 4500, which allows for the tank to settle in at 4500.
But I was curious what your thought were on this. I have the evidence to prove you don't need anything more than 2-3" of cotton to filter out the vast majority of the moisture and oil that come from the compressor. Let me know what you guys think about this. I'm genuinely interested in your feedback or your own experiences.
My filter has 3" of cylindrical cotton near the entrance, 4 or 5 inches of desiccant (the color changing kind) in the middle, and another 3" of cotton at the exiting end. There's stainless steel mesh separating the different elements in the filter. But I decided to pull it apart, and I discovered that only the first piece of cotton showed ANY signs of staining or "wear" from the process. The desiccant is purple, and when it gets wet, it turns pink. It's commercial grade. I have a gallon container of it. I use it at my work for various purposes. But it's VERY sensitive to moisture. You can definitely tell when it gets wet. It goes from a royal blue / purple color to a hot pink color. But when I pulled the filter apart, there was ZERO evidence of moisture. My compressor has a water moisture trap on it. Every time I drain the trap, there's a LOT of moisture that comes out. There's no way the trap captures ALL of the moisture though. I guess the point that I'm trying to make is I don't think the huge inline filters are necessary. I think they are overkill. Air Venture makes a small, inline filter that I just ordered.
The other issue with the large filter is the volume of the filter in and of itself. It's like airing up an additional .35L air tank on top of whatever else you're airing up. And it's not like taking the tank from 3000psi to 4500psi. You're going from zero to 4500. So in my opinion it's enormously wasteful, and puts unnecessary time and stress on the compressor- which already operates teetering on the verge of component failure.
So I'm going to start using the smaller inline filter when filling my tanks. I'm going to replace the stock Buna-N o-rings with cast disogrin polyurethane o-rings that have a shear strength of 6,000psi, and can handle pressures up to 10,000 psi. Then I can push the filter to 4600 psi instead of 4500, which allows for the tank to settle in at 4500.
But I was curious what your thought were on this. I have the evidence to prove you don't need anything more than 2-3" of cotton to filter out the vast majority of the moisture and oil that come from the compressor. Let me know what you guys think about this. I'm genuinely interested in your feedback or your own experiences.
