The air doesn't really "dry" as much as it cools and the moisture in it condenses to a liquid state, dropping out of the air stream. Using rubber hose doesn't do the same ting as piping for two reasons:
1. The hose doesn't conduct heat rapidly enough to cool the air to condense the moisture before it gets to the point of use.
2. The hose will inevitably be coiled all over the floor and benches, etc, and will not allow any condensed water to drain back to the compressor tank. If any moisture does condense, it will pool in a low point in the hose until it accumulates enough that it suddenly horks up a hefty bolus of liquid right to your torch, trashing the consumables.
A better plan would be to go to the automotive supply house and get an extra coalescing filter and one of those 5 or 10 gallon portable air tanks, or better yet, a real air reciever from a defunct compressor. Run the air hose from the compressor to the tank, then put the coalescing filter right at the tank outlet and keep as short a line as possible form the filter to the plasma unit. As I noted in a previous post about this topic, one of the filters that uses a replaceable element is far better than the coalescing type, though harder to find locally.
Gillis, The air doesn't
Gillis,
The air doesn't really "dry" as much as it cools and the moisture in it condenses to a liquid state, dropping out of the air stream. Using rubber hose doesn't do the same ting as piping for two reasons:
1. The hose doesn't conduct heat rapidly enough to cool the air to condense the moisture before it gets to the point of use.
2. The hose will inevitably be coiled all over the floor and benches, etc, and will not allow any condensed water to drain back to the compressor tank. If any moisture does condense, it will pool in a low point in the hose until it accumulates enough that it suddenly horks up a hefty bolus of liquid right to your torch, trashing the consumables.
A better plan would be to go to the automotive supply house and get an extra coalescing filter and one of those 5 or 10 gallon portable air tanks, or better yet, a real air reciever from a defunct compressor. Run the air hose from the compressor to the tank, then put the coalescing filter right at the tank outlet and keep as short a line as possible form the filter to the plasma unit. As I noted in a previous post about this topic, one of the filters that uses a replaceable element is far better than the coalescing type, though harder to find locally.
I hope this clears things up a bit.