Daisychaining Air Compressors

I posted the same question a few weeks ago and got some good replies (ignoring the hissy fits a few posters got into among themselves over semantics). Bottom line is they said go for it - its done all the time. I paralleled a 3hp and a 5 hp and it worked with no apparent issues. I put in ball valves so that either could be taken off line without having to bleed down the other.

Great idea, Terry. :-)

Harold

Daisy-chain, no. If you connect the input of one to the output of the other, bad things may well happen. However, putting some sort of T on the outputs, and then running the sprayer from the end works. You probably want to set the pressure set points on the compressors a little differently. Valves to isolate the compressors may be a good idea.

The breathable air system I used to work on had two compressors on one tank. A check valve, or as suggested by another poster, a ball valve to isolate one compressor without bleeding down the system is nice to have.

The system we had used an interesting control circuit. When the pressure would drop to the 'restart' point, it would alternate compressors. If the pressure dropped too low, it would kick in both of em.

As stated by another, feeding the output of one to the input of another would be bad.

ok, I see someone took you to task with the term daisychaining.

Assuming you mean to manifold multiple compressors together, a great idea, actually.

I have a catalog at work for a popular german compressor brand, and they recommend for commercial applications, multipe compressors, imagine that.

the idea is instead of running one monster at full throttle, you cycle several smaller ones