Fittings for pipe and water filter

[TulTrak]

Hello. I've had a small compressor for only a few months now and recently I used it to do some spray painting. Having seen many warnings saying it probably wouldn't be powerful enough I was pleasantly surprised that it coped absolutely fine.

I have a filter regulator (fairly inexpensive Sealey product) that I would like to add to my line, and having read the section on here about water removal I'm also considering a drop leg which would run about 1m up the wall and then to the water filter, with a ball valve to drain water from.

I'm not looking to spend loads of money and I've never worked with copper pipe before, so my first question is how advantageous is it to have a drop when there's a water filter anyway?

Secondly I'm a complete noob when it comes to pipe fittings. What will I need to get a short flexi hose from the compressor onto copper pipe?

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[keithski122]

For my set up I ran a plumbing tap flexipipe from the compressor to the wall, then I ran 1/2 inch copper tubing about 6 foot along the wall.Then it goes up 1/2 metre then down 1 meter it does this 3 times with a tap at the bottom of each drop.Half way up the last drop I have a t fitting that goes of to the regulator.All the joints are solder plumbing fittings.
It seem to work ok, I get water out of the first 2 taps but never further onwards.
All the plumbing fittings seem to be to a far higher pressure than the compressor kicks out.

 

[Daz1968]

I used John guest fittings, they have a water trap tee for the drop to regulator filter to help prevent the water getting to it, reasonably priced and easy to work with, I used 22mm from compressor vertical then you need to run with a slight downhill slope, I then fitted water trap tee with leg down to air regulator which tees off this leg with a drain tap at bottom, then a drop leg on end of run of larger pipe, did the same at work for our plasma as well and get dry air for tools and spraying, but this may be ott for what you need, main thing is get a reasonable run before the filter regulator so the air has cooled and the water will come out of it then. There are a few air installation guides if you google for them.

 

[TulTrak]

Thanks for your replies. I hadn't come across John Guest before for air, do you use the John Guest nylon pipe? Is there stuff compatible with plumbing fittings? I'm really just after the simplest way of going from the compressor tank to the filter, with a single drop and tap. Do many people use compression fittings? As my installation is small it's probably not worth me getting equipment and learning to solder.

Thanks again