Never thought about zig zag would be a lot of fittings to get all the pipe setup so it would completely drain, it needs to be steep enough that the air doesn't carry the water with it. I have about 40' of pipe in my system. I stop by the local recycle center every now and then looking for old hot water baseboard, the 3/4 copper pipe with all the fins on it. It would work really well dropping the temp. Usually by the time I get there its all crushed up.

I went with 3/4 copper just to keep the air velocity down, gives the air more time to cool and drop the water. 1/2 would probably work as well.

Ebay has some great deals on HUGE filters every now and then. I found a couple of new ingersoll rand filters that had a 1" line in. They seem to work really well and flow great. You can see from my picture above, I have 2 connects to my system. The one for everyday use is just 2 5 micron filters. For paint I go through a 5 micron followed by a Coalescent filter to remove any oil and finally a desiccant filter. Honestly though, I don't get much water in any of the filters, most of it ends up in the copper tubing.

 

here is a read if interested.

Air Line Setup

i have a drop at about 10 feet and a drop at about 35 feet.

The drop at 10 feet is almost worthless.

 

OK went to home depot today but there "plumber" was lacking, so i was on my own, but pressed for time so didn't end up buying anything...i couldn't find any compression fittings that would go from the 1/4" male on the compressor to 1/2" copper tube...other than that, the setup i came up with would be, 1/4 to 1/2" out the compressor regulator, then drop down to the floor where it will 'T' off to 1/2 and 3/4", the 3/4" facing down and piped to a drain valve, the 1/2 then (using a tube bender) coiled back and forth for the rest of the 24' of pipe i would buy, each run angled up so the water can flow back down to the 3/4" trap/drain....then to an inline drier, then to my hose.....any other suggestions? maby an inline filter for when i start painting...

 

Due to pressure loss in all the tubes I connected everything to the compressor including the filters with the regulator being last.

 

I used a air dryer from harbor freight when I painted and had no water issues or fish eyes. It was really cheap ($30)and removed all of the water.
http://www.harborfreight.com/air-too...nit-98904.html

Here is my paint booth I built and how I connected the compressors and dryer
http://chris66dad.tripod.com/id24.html

 

I agree w/ some posters above.

A water separator will not work unless you have sufficient run of metal pipe to allow air to cool and H2O to condense out.

I use 50 ft of 1/2" copper pipe sloped into compressor tank (joined with flex hose).

My downstream water separator is rendered almost useless as most of the water has already drained back into the compressor tank.