# Water seperator for portable air compressor



## cujo8 (Apr 18, 2011)

I have a DeWalt 4.5gal portable air compressor I use for air tools at locations away from my shop and I need to add some sort of water separator system to remove water from my air lines. It's quite easy to add a separator to a stationary air compressor system, but I'm not quite sure how to accomplish this for my portable air compressor. Any Ideas? Thanks for looking.


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Bulb disposable filters work very well. They screw right on the gun.
http://image.carcraft.com/f/10414947+w750+st0/ccrp_0511_03_z+paint_spray_gun+.jpg












 







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## mickit (Oct 5, 2009)

I've got a small canister type separator on a quick connect that plugs in at the panel on my little 4 gallon. Plug the hose into the outlet. Works great.


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## cujo8 (Apr 18, 2011)

mickit said:


> I've got a small canister type separator on a quick connect that plugs in at the panel on my little 4 gallon. Plug the hose into the outlet. Works great.


Is the canister type separator you mentioned the same as what cabinentman mentioned? Usually putting a water separator right at the outlet of a compressor is not that effective at removing water, since the air-stream leaving the compressor is too warm to let the water condense in a trap-style water separator. 

Over the winter I brought in my portable compressor from my unheated garage to install some baseboards and the amount of water coming out of the hose during the job would have quickly overwhelmed one of those desiccant style screw in water traps IMO. Every time I shot in a nail I could see a plume of water mist shoot out of the exhaust of my finishing nailer and when I removed the air-hose from the compressor connection it sprayed a lot of water out of the hose. Granted that in this particular situation the conditions to condense water were at a worse case scenario (ice-cold compressor pulling in warm air). 

Thanks for your input guys.


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## BWSmith (Aug 24, 2010)

Posted on your senco thread.


Reason for response here is to show a little history/timeline/insight.


Tripping on back in construction world.....................you'll see the rise of "cordless" nailguns just about the time all those small compressors had been out awhile.BW


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

cujo8 said:


> Is the canister type separator you mentioned the same as what cabinentman mentioned?


No, it's not the same. It traps moisture before it reaches the gun. 



cujo8 said:


> Usually putting a water separator right at the outlet of a compressor is not that effective at removing water, since the air-stream leaving the compressor is too warm to let the water condense in a trap-style water separator.


You're absolutely correct. Not only is the air warm to hot, its at great pressure and mostly blows on by the filter. It's best to have filters as far from the compressor as possible. There will be some moisture trapped in the hose which should be blown out regularly.












 







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