Air compressor filter housing / silencer

[Ken226]

About 2 weeks ago I decided to replace the 8 year old filter elements in my air compressors intake filters. When I had them apart, i noticed that the cheap stamped sheetmetal housings were pretty beat up, so I decided to replace them.

Searching for replacements online and reading reviews started me down the rabbit hole of looking for better quality, quieter designs. Naturally, the designs with the better reviews were alot more expensive, like the Solberg ps-10-050.

I modeled, 3d printed and tried about 10 different iterations of several designs, and most were pretty loud. Most were louder than the cheap, stamped sheetmetal units that came with the compressor pump.

The quietest of all of them, will keeping the airflow above the 16cfm rating of my 7hp v4 pump was this twisted pentagon, with a kinda tapered helical path of the air inlet paths. The idea behind this design was that the sound waves following a curved path would be forced to interact more with the rough 3d printed surface finish, and maybe attenuate more per distance traveled.

It seem to have worked, since it's actually the only one of all the designs i tried that is actually quiter than the oem housings.

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The last prototype worked well, but needs a better seal between the lid and the housing, so I added 5 screw holes at some sockets for threaded inserts.



The final version will look like this:

 

[extropic]

Nifty project.

Just thinkin out loud here.
The intake ports look really small (area). Small intake ports = higher velocity = more energy = more noise.
Line the perimeter walls with intake ports? Apply sound deadener to interior walls?

Amazon.com

 

[Ken226]

Nifty project.

Just thinkin out loud here.
The intake ports look really small (area). Small intake ports = higher velocity = more energy = more noise.
Line the perimeter walls with intake ports? Apply sound deadener to interior walls?

Amazon.com

Several of the earlier versions had bigger ports. Alot bigger, and they were alot louder.

Here is a previous version, and unfortunately it was loud as hell.

Then another version of that one, that was quieter had smaller intake ports and a more convoluted S shaped airflow path:

As I progressed though the different versions, one of the constants was that the smaller I made the holes, the quieter it was. Except, that I couldn't go any smaller that what i have on this version, or sum total area of the ports would cause the airflow to drop below the compressors 16cfm rating. (the hair looking stuff on it is from the 3d printers cooling fan. I obviously cleaned that off before testing).

As for the sound deadening material idea, I have some stuff i can try. I wonder though how much difference it will make, since a similar effect is kinda built-in, with all the air spaces in the 3d printers gyroid infill pattern. the entire volume of space inside the walls is made of thousands of tiny sealed air pockets. Though, I do have some activated charcoal material that will suffice for some testing.

By far, the one with the 5 small, long helical tunnels has been the quietest.


I think that the reason the smaller holes are quieter with the air compressor, is that the noise isn't actually from the airflow, but from the mechanical opening/closing of the butterfly type reed valves inside the cylinder heads. The airflow @ 16fm is very slow, but acts as a medium for the sound waves from the reed valves.

 

[pontiac428]

Yeah, reed valves are great noisemakers. Just posting to compliment your kung-fu solid modeling skills, that's definitely advanced level work.

 

[Ken226]

Yeah, reed valves are great noisemakers. Just posting to compliment your kung-fu solid modeling skills, that's definitely advanced level work.

Thank you.

With the version that had the biggest ports, it sounded like a flock of Canada geese flying over. I kind laughed for just a sec, before jamming my fingers in my ears and turning it back off. Imagine a super loud, rapid honkhonkhonkhonk!

 

[Ken226]

Still waiting for USPS to drop of some m6x35mm screws today, then they'll be ready to install.

In Prusament Galaxy Black ASA.

 

[Ken226]

Got it installed.

Nothing will make this compressor quiet, but at least it is more quiet than it was before.

 

[455dan]

Kind of embarrassed to say it but I used a cheap HF drain tube and then hooked the Hose to a Thrush Hush Turbo muffler to quiet the intake on the Black diamond 2 stage compressor.

That looks very clean functional design and install Ken 226. Excellent design and taking it to fruition skills

 

[toprecyler]

Nothing constructive to add, but nice cool design of the new air filter housing.


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