The design of any air dryer is critical to its life span. Many dryers, especially the smaller dryers for air compressors with capacities from 0,38 to 1,5 m³/min, are built to a price. The components making up a normal dryer are the freon compressor, the heat exchanger to cool the compressed air to 3°C, and the finned condenser coil with its electric fan.
The condenser coil and the fan are the two components most likely to cause premature failure of a dryer. On small capacity dryers the fan has a bush, not a bearing. Atmospheric dust and dirt can cause the bush to fail. The fan motor then burns out, the fan stops and the freon system gets excessively hot. The high gas temperature burns out the freon compressor winding as well. The result is an expensive repair requiring a new freon compressor and fan motor, along with a gas refill and labour costs.
If the fan bush does not fail, the close fin design of the condenser is the next potential cause of failure. As dirt blocks the cooling air flow through the condenser, the gas temperature rises, the fan switch overworks and the bush works harder, along with the fan motor. Either an elevated gas temperature causes a freon compressor winding failure or the bush fails again, resulting in an expensive repair bill.
Featuring a unique design, the TX Series air dryers have an evaporative cooler with no fan. This means no fan motor bush and no close fin spacing, so dirt cannot accumulate on the condenser coil and they can operate under all site conditions. They have a static condenser like the wide spaced domestic fridge/freezer panels. There are only three moving parts on the dryer: a timed electric condensate drain, the freon compressor and a rotary dew point indicator.
The freon circuit is very different to that of a normal dryer. The gas leaving the compressor is passed into the static coil for cooling using cooler atmospheric air than the air to freon re-heater exchanger. This cools the hot freon and simultaneously reheats the compressed air, ready to enter the air line. The gas then passes to the main air-to-freon exchanger to cool the compressed air to dew point. From there it returns to the compressor.
Artic Driers has sold over a thousand of these dryers with an almost zero return rate. The price is comparable to many low cost built dryers from other countries. The dryers are backed by a three year warranty.
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