Compressor question

How often do you drain your compressor completely?
I know the manual says every day you should drain the entire thing, but this gets a little old after a while.
I tend to open the valve (bought a 90 deg ball valve for the drain so it's easier) frequently to drain the water but leave it compressed most of the time.
Thoughts?

Thomas
-8 flaps

Its a matter of scale

One cannot argue that draining the tank after every use is not the best way to maintain the equipment. It is. Do I do it that often? Heck no. I have too much crap between me and the valve. I do it when I think about it. I bought a 20 year old compressor, 20 years ago. I drained it less than 50 times over that time period I'm sure. I moved to a new compressor a couple of years ago because I could no longer get parts for the old Kellogg and it needed an intake valve. I imagine this new one will last just as long.

TShort said:

How often do you drain your compressor completely?
I know the manual says every day.........................................Thoughts?
Thomas-8 flaps

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Yea right...my goal is to make it a special mission in life to drain that compressor tank once a day. Seriously, when I do get around to draining the tanks, which can best be described as occasionally or "now and then," (I have two compressors, one at home, one at the airport) they seem none the worse for wear. My portable 5 hp home compressor has been worked hard approaching 6 years because I use it for all manner of household jobs that go well beyond aircraft construction and when I do get around to draining it, the sometimes voluminous amount of primordial sludge that forcefully spews from that tank is not a pretty sight! Should I drain the tank EVERY day? I suppose so. Do I? Well...........nobody's perfect.

Rick Galati RV-6A "Darla"

rzbill said:

One cannot argue that draining the tank after every use is not the best way to maintain the equipment. It is. ....

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I believe that one could easily argue that draining the water out is ALL that is required for good maintenance.
Decompressing the tank every day only adds to the range of the fatigue cycling load and increases the wear on the compressor unnecessarily.

Drain the water daily (10 or 15 seconds) and you're golden.

-mike

Do you leave the compressor "on" 24/7? If you only turn it on when you're working on a project, you can leave the bleed valve slightly open all of the time. I mean VERY slightly open, to the point where it the leakage is almost unnoticable.

Water will condense, then run to the bottom of the tank where it is forced out under pressure.

That reminds me... I need to drain my compressor!



Maybe we should make it an annual event like the birthday calandar? Annual "Drain Your Compressor Day"!



I was just thinking, if you ran a hunk o' toobing from the 1/4" NPT port on the bottom of the tank to a valve mounted waist high in a convenient location (maybe to the sink drain if possible?) it would facilitate a better maintenance schedule!

The air would push the water all the way through the tube until empty!

Hmmmmm, maybe in one of my leisure moments?

I get so many of them!

CJ

Captain_John said:

I was just thinking, if you ran a hunk o' toobing from the 1/4" NPT port on the bottom of the tank to a valve mounted waist high in a convenient location (maybe to the sink drain if possible?) it would facilitate a better maintenance schedule!

The air would push the water all the way through the tube until empty!

Click to expand...

That actually works quite well. On my old compressor I hated getting underneath and draining out all that nasty, rusty water. When I bought my new one, I attached about 4 feet of high pressure tubing to the port on the bottom. I left several coils on the floor under the compressor and then ran it up and attached it to the side of my workbench. To the end of the tubing I attached a valve, and then a length of thin wall tubing so I can direct the output into a can or bottle for disposal.

The condensation runs out of the tank and into the coils of tubing. The advantage is that the water is sitting in the plastic tubing instead of rusting the bottom of your tank. Once a month or so, I use the valve to empty out the tubing. The cool part is that instead of being all rust colored and full of crap, the water that comes out is clear.

PJ
RV10 #40032

Much Presure

Mike,
What you said is actually what I meant. I did not mean to imply "drain it multiple times a day". Heaven's no, I really meant once a "work session" would be good. I certainly don't do it even that often. I say drain it when you feel like it, and do as you say by just removing the water and not all the air.
Even so, as far as fatigue cycles go, tanks are steel (which is more ductile and less susceptable to fatigue compared to aluminum) and have very high safety factors so the strains will be way down in the elastic range. I don't think tank fatigue should be a concern in our lifetime, even if one went to the extreme of pressure cycling the tank a lot.

Kyle,
Your post brought a chuckle. 24/7 -! I am building in the basement, so the compressor is there. On the basement doorway, easily seen while ascending the stairs, my co-builder (wife) put the letters "COMPRESSOR OFF?"
I can say that it has helped me remember to shut it off once or twice! Too often, I shut it off at 2-3AM after it has startled us awake.

I end up draining at the end of every work session. It's the way my dog knows it's time to stop working on the stupid airplane (he thinks) and go walking.

But I do have an oily substance when I drain it. Only occasionally. That bothers me.

I drain mine once every couple of days (it's 60 gallons so it takes forever). I get oil too. That's pretty normal.

compressor drain

For what its worth you can get a automatic drain at HF for less than $10 ,works great.
Don
RV9A Almost done with the fuel tanks.