How good is the water / moisture trap in a GX CS3

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Geezerhood

Geezerhood

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Aug 16, 2022
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Southern, Utah, USA
I live in the desert with fairly dry air most of the time. We are in the monsoon season as they call it right now and I am seeing a bit more water come out of the drain tube every time I release the pressure in the hose once the bottle is full, so it is definitely working and extracting more moisture with the higher humidity. Do I need something else with the GX CS3 to further reduce moisture in the air output? I don't want to ruin my PCP guns. Is there some way to check the moisture content of the air coming out of the compressor?
 
You only need to add this water/oil separator to your compressor. I use two with mine to be in the safe side

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Thanks Ray. The white filter looks like an expendable that you would replace periodically. How long do they last? Do you need to drain and dry the metal housing after each use? Where might I find the type you are using?

So, can I assume then that the water separator on the GX CS3 is not sufficient to remove enough water from the air to protect the tank and gun from possible moisture damage? Their website makes it sound like no additional filters / separators are needed, but I do like the idea of a secondary water trap. Since the GX CS3 is an oil free compressor, I am assuming there are no worries there about the oil residue build up in the tank or the gun.
 
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I think the built in separator/filter does a decent job, but I added on the same inline filter that Ray_PR did.
They are cheap enough and it is just that extra bit of protection with no real downside.

I live in humid central Texas and when I put a larger bottle on my TalonP, the old bottle was 100% dry inside with no signs of rust so I am pretty confident that the combination is stopping moisture pretty effectively.
 
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I have no experience with that pump, I use a YH. But if you can arrange the air hoses so they flow back to the pump and then open the bleeder every few minutes it will reduce the separation whatever filter you use has to do. I just did a 20 minute run on my YH today to fill my 45 minute SCBA tank from 3000 psi to 4000 psi. I vented every 5 minutes. A noticable amount of water came out each time. I have the cotton filter that came with the YH and a separate unit I have color changing beads in. I replaced the cotton filter (I got a bag of 100 pretty cheap from allibaba) and checked the beads. They are still orange, haven't turned black yet. After 4 or 5 runs like this. I got maybe one drop of water out of the cotton filter. I live in SC where it is pretty humid. I could reuse the cotton filters after letting them dry out but they also get a little oil contamination on them.

The blue one in the picture already posted looks like the one that came with my YH. Something like that and a bag of the cotton filters it uses should be enough, I think. I would check the filter after each run to see how much water it is catching. If you do and it is staying dry, then you could back off to checking after more runs.
 
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I have a small Air Venturi inline filter on my Trail Charger, but I think even more importantly is to operate the compressor in an air conditioned room.

There might have to be exceptions to that rule sometimes, if you need to pump your gun in the field or whatnot, but overall it should make a big difference in air quality/humidity.
 
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Thanks all for the helpful comments. I agree that a secondary water trap / filter is a good idea. I don't want to spend $300+ on one or even $100 which is 25% of what my compressor cost, if I don't really need to, but watching one of the videos at Target Forge on YouTube made me a bit nervous about buying a $40 one, when the fellow talked about someone "mangling" his hand when a budget filter housing apparently failed in use.
- Did it fail from corrosion caused by filter beads being in contact with the aluminum housing? He didn't say.

He emphasized that the filtering beads if any need to be isolated from the aluminum tubing, so I am going to make sure that whatever I get if it uses beads, will be in some kind of cartridge / plastic liner tube that does that.
 
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Geezerhood said:
I live in the desert with fairly dry air most of the time. We are in the monsoon season as they call it right now and I am seeing a bit more water come out of the drain tube every time I release the pressure in the hose once the bottle is full, so it is definitely working and extracting more moisture with the higher humidity. Do I need something else with the GX CS3 to further reduce moisture in the air output? I don't want to ruin my PCP guns. Is there some way to check the moisture content of the air coming out of the compressor?
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As you said above, you live in the desert (Arizona?), so even when the "monsoon" season comes, your humidity is so much lower than where I live (North Alabama) that I would not sweat about it AT ALL!

The only caveat is if you insist on shooting the bottle down so low that you really have to either do one LOOONG session or (the reasonable way) pump it back up with breaks to keep the pump (compressor/hand pump/whatever) from getting hot and allow it to be able to cool down quickly.

Where I live, the dew point has been 75 for most of the summer and the RH has been at least 50 and often 80-100%. I seriously doubt you ever see anything even close to that.

When I pump (hand pump) up my airguns, I always do it indoors (a/c) and I have hygrometers (because I love cigars) that let me know how dry the air is at any moment.

Does this keep out ALL moisture? No, of course not. But in 4 years I have never had a problem with moisture in any airgun.

If you are using a "compressor" and only filling a bottle/pressure tube when it gets too low to shoot reliably, then you may/will have moisture issues.

Compressors are great, but just like hand pumps, if you run them too long in a single session (increased heat and moisture)... you will have more problems.

JMHO-YMMV
 
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I bought a fill set for my SCBA tank from Joe B. and am very happy with it. I'm also sure it is possible to make an inexpensive chinese made moisture filter fail. But I own two and if I compare the wall thickness they have to the air chamber on my PCPs it is hugely different. The moisture filters are probably a lower grade of aluminum but still the wall has to be at least 5 times as thick. I do not worry about them at all. I lost an O-ring in one but that is the only bad thing that has happened. My black extra filter on the YH came with a couple plastic cartridges. I took out the charcoal and whatever else they had inside and fill the space with color changing beads. My extra one stored on a shelf in a zip lock bag had picked up enough moisture the beads need dried or replaced. The cartridge in the filter is still mostly orange showing it is not loaded up with moisture.

I don't think you have to worry about the quality of what you buy from Joe B. but his stuff is also not cheap. I think you have to pay attention to what you buy from China but I have had very good luck with it (except for the fill set for a SCBA tank). I am very confident in the mechanical reliability of my chinese moisture filters.
 
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I saw a couple videos on these little compressors after typing my previous responses. I don't really think you need an after market filter with these if you will check your filter or trap after each run (at least until you know how much moisture it is trapping) and vent every 5 minutes or so of run time. It looks to me like they have reasonable capacity moisture filters for the amount of air they compress. I'd plan to change a cotton filter after each run unless you cannot get any visible water out of it by squeezing it. Even then it wouldn't hurt to rotate a couple to make sure the one in the filter cartridge is dry.
 
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