Quote:
Originally Posted by dtengineering
While having your high pressure storage tanks in series or parallell doesn't really matter, there are a number of ways to hook up the tanks, some of which may offer advantages. (Note that vent valves and pressure gauges need to be included, too, but aren't shown in the diagrams.)
1) Compressor------tank----tank-----regulator
2) compressor------tank-----regulator
.....................| |
.....................---tank---
3) compressor-----------------regulator
.......................|
.......................-----tank----tank
4) compressor-----------------regulator
........................|
........................ -----tank
........................|
.........................------tank
These should all work about the same, but methods #3 and #4 offer a reduced amount of tubing should your storage tanks be located somewhere other than in close proximity to the compressor and regulator. Note, of course, that longer runs do mean reduced flow... whether this is significant varies on your system's air demands and tubing lengths and diameters, of course.
You may also want to consider the potential for putting a storage tank downstream of the regulator
compressor-----tank----regulator-----(long tubing)----tank--valve---piston
.................................................. ....................................|-------|
This may be useful if you need a lot of flow at the piston, but are worried about flow restrictions in the tubing. The air stored in the tank downstream of the regulator would only be at 60psi, but it would be right there, where you need it.
Keep in mind that the valves should be reasonably close to the pneumatic cylinders so that you do not have to vent the tubing as well as the cylinder when you change its position.
Jason
P.S. Hmmm... pardon the dots in the ascii "art" above... but CD seems to keep ignoring the space characters... any tips on how to keep the leading spaces without resorting to dots would be appreciated.
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Each of these setups has advantages and disadvantages, I'll go through each one:
1> This setup allows the highest volume of air to be held, since FIRST rules allow 120 PSI between the compressor and regulator but only 60 PSI beyond the regulator. This setup is best when used in a system where restriction is not an issue but rapid use (continuous cycling) of the pneumatics may deplete the air supply faster than the compressor can supply.
2> This setup sacrifices a little volume for the wider flowpath and moving a volume closer to the application. This setup us good for pneumatics that require short burst / medium volume with a medium cycletime in between uses. This is generally considered the best tradeoff.
3> This setup gives you the least volume of air but puts the volumes right at the application and is good for very short burst / very high volume use applications such as air cannons and such.
4> This is similar to #3 but allows for the volumes to be split between applications, thus allowing 2 very short burst / medium to high volume applications.
Oh, and about long tubing. 1> It's against the rules to add tubing just to add volume (at least it was last year) and 2> adding tubing adds restriction and will actually lower flow rates, unless you run parallel tubing. By the way, when running parallel tubing I recommend using 'Y' fittings rather than 'T' fittings as they restrict less.
For ascii art, you may want to try the 'code' tags.