I am about to rework/clean up my low pressure pump stand. I want to start with the air supply. I like the looks of the KIP premade manifolds that you can buy with 2 - 6 ports with the solenoids already on them. Is the manifold with the valves installed on it the way to go, or am I better off using a different manifold and just adding stand alone valves for each function? I am not really impressed with the needle valves built into the KIP stand alone solenoids. They seem to leak and it seems I am always adjusting them. Are the needle valves built into their permade manifold blocks any better or should I add stand alone needle valves after the solenoids?
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Solenoid Manifold Blocks
- Thread starter sparkey
- Start date
Earl Weiss
Well-known member
FWIW, did away with needle valves. Have an 8 Bay. Use two 4 valve manifold blocks. Except for Foam Brush which uses a seperate Flo Jet for each 4 valve manifold I simply put in a T between the two 4 valve manifolds and feed both with a single Flo Jet 1/2" braided tubing or regulated air supply . All manifolds are run wide open. 3/8 poly runs from the manifold to the bay. I adjust volume / pressure with the regulater to the flo jet or air supply.
Foam Brush uses more volume then than gun tips so I use 2 flo jets jsut in case all 8 used foam brush at the same time.
Foam Brush uses more volume then than gun tips so I use 2 flo jets jsut in case all 8 used foam brush at the same time.
I agree that the manifolds are clean and compact, which makes them friendly to your equipment room. I have two washes, one with them and one without them.
I've already stated the pro's about using the compact manifold system. The biggest con I have is the unfriendly way of having to work on them. For example, if you have issues with one of the solenoids, you have to kill the supply to the entire manifold. So all bays would be down for that option (such as presoak). The other con is if you use any manifold bigger than a two station one, the middle solenoids can be little buggers to get apart. Usually when I have to do maintenance on a solenoid with the manifold, I have to plan it for the middle of the night. I can't tell you how many times I've been squirted in the face or stuck a screwdriver in my finger trying to hurry up and do the repairs because a pump just turned on and I need to get it back up and operational.
IMO, if I were to restructure my system at the one wash and had the room, I would go to using a pipe as the manifold with valves to seperate solenoids. That way when having to do maintenance, you would only have to kill that bay and not them all. This is how my other wash is set up, and after 20yrs the copper pipe that was being used started developing pinholes in it. So I replaced it with PEX and all is working well.
I've already stated the pro's about using the compact manifold system. The biggest con I have is the unfriendly way of having to work on them. For example, if you have issues with one of the solenoids, you have to kill the supply to the entire manifold. So all bays would be down for that option (such as presoak). The other con is if you use any manifold bigger than a two station one, the middle solenoids can be little buggers to get apart. Usually when I have to do maintenance on a solenoid with the manifold, I have to plan it for the middle of the night. I can't tell you how many times I've been squirted in the face or stuck a screwdriver in my finger trying to hurry up and do the repairs because a pump just turned on and I need to get it back up and operational.
IMO, if I were to restructure my system at the one wash and had the room, I would go to using a pipe as the manifold with valves to seperate solenoids. That way when having to do maintenance, you would only have to kill that bay and not them all. This is how my other wash is set up, and after 20yrs the copper pipe that was being used started developing pinholes in it. So I replaced it with PEX and all is working well.
