Refrigerated Air Dryer, IDF, IDFB

Is your pneumatic equipment adequately protected from moisture? Even the slightest amount of water can cause valves and actuators to fail. Stainless steel gear can hold up to a great deal of abuse, and it certainly resists the growth of rust as best as it can. However, nothing is absolutely flawless and even the most stalwart components will eventually succumb to this kind of damage.

If your workshop is like most in the country, then you’re not doing enough to prevent this kind of problem from happening. Fortunately, SMC Pneumatics has you covered with refrigerated air dryer technology. The IDF and IDFB series units work hard to remove moisture from an air circuit and ensure that oxidization and other issues don’t happen nearly as quickly.

While you might be thinking to yourself that you don’t need this kind of specialized gear, you may want to think again before deciding that.

Why Does Moisture Get into Compressed Air-driven Equipment?

An air dryer will remove vapor from moist compressed air delivered from a compressor, which is especially important if you work in any sort of humid climate. Humidity starts to get into everything in this sort of circumstance. Even though pneumatic air circuits are supposed to be theoretically sealed, nothing is perfect and water will start to get in. Consider the fact that your compressor has to draw air from the world around you, and that air naturally has water in it. Even if you were working under the hot sun in the driest deserts of California and Nevada there would still be a tiny amount of water in the air that could, over a long period of time, start to cause issues.

Over time, valves and actuators may start to malfunction as rest of dropping grease once the water starts to get into the equipment. It might also decompose automatic drain pipes due to rust. In some severe situations, technicians have even noticed water droplets start to eject from the ends of sprayers and other pneumatic tools.

In the end, you can use a refrigerated air dryer to clean out the air and make sure that it’s as moisture-free as possible.

How Refrigerated Air Dryers Work

Hot and humid air that’s taken up into the air dryer will get cooled down over time by a heat exchanger. Any moisture that condenses into the water as an effect of this process gets removed from the air by an automatic drain separator. This separator then flushes the water to another location, which is usually behind the physical unit. If you’ve ever worked with a consumer-grade dehumidifier, then you’re probably already familiar with this principle.

Think about how an air conditioner works and how moisture sometimes drips off the condensing coils. Once again, an air refrigerant cycle works much the same way. Air that’s been separated out from the water can then be sent back to the heat exchanger to obtain the dried air, which will then get forced out the outlet port. This makes the entire process entirely self-contained. You won’t have to worry about doing any of the work yourself.

A Look at the IDF & IDFB Series of Devices

All IDF and IDFB series air dryers use specialized stainless steel plate-type heat exchangers, which helps to greatly reduce the risk of corrosion. This is vital considering that the air going into these devices very often has water mixed into it. You don’t want to deploy any equipment that isn’t going to be able to stand up to that kind of stress if it doesn’t have a heat exchanger that’s this robust.

IDF series units feature a standard temperature measure air inlet that’s suitable for use in an overwhelming majority of situations, but there are also higher temperature options available for specific use cases. You’ll want to opt for one of these reinforced devices if you have to use heated air for whatever reason. Otherwise, a standard IDF dryer should work just fine.

A number of different specialty options are offered by the vendor as well. For instance, some users might need cool compressed air to come out of the outlet while others will want an additional level of anti-corrosive treatment to prevent damage in harsh use cases.

You might want to consider any of these following ones too:

• Built-in circuit breakers
• Automatic metal drain bowls with level gauges
• Motor-type drainage systems
• Power supply terminal block connections
• Alarm signal hookups
• Remote control support
• Water-cooled condensers
• External power transformers
• Bypass piping & piping adapters
• Foundation bolt sets

Engineers are constantly working on new innovations, so you should never consider any feature list complete. They’re always adding new options to refrigerated air dryers, so you’ll want to get in touch with us for the most up-to-date product specifications. Most people might be satisfied with a standard configuration, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t take a look at all of these sophisticated features. They’re especially useful if your company is working to automate workflows and accomplish as much as possible without requiring human intervention.

Acquiring Refrigerated Air Dryers that Meet Your Company’s Needs

A small business owner may only need one or two units that are capable of handling a single air circuit that they use on a daily basis. Bigger enterprises might have to maintain a large amount of compressed air-driven gear, and therefore they might need to have a number of units. Those of you in the first group are probably afraid that your order is too small to be processed while those in the second might be concerned that you can’t order this kind of equipment in bulk.

SMC Pneumatics doesn’t turn anyone away no matter what size their order is. Nothing is too big or too small for our organization. We want to ensure that everyone has the equipment they need to achieve success in all their ventures. Contact us online today, and we’ll put you in touch with one of our experienced experts. They’ll be able to find solutions that fit your needs as well as your budget.