Pop or Soda?

June 17, 2013 — japanfalone

If you were asked the generic term for a sweetened carbonated beverage, what would you call it, soda, pop, or coke? Your answer would depend on where you live. People from the West Coast and Northeast would call it soda. Folks from the Midwest and Mountain areas call it pop. And folks in the South… ask for a Coke, no matter what they’re ordering. “I’ll have a coke”.  ”What kind”.  ” Root beer please”.

coke or pop

As an application engineer, I have customers use terms for our products, while they are relevant to them, they really do not accurately tag the product. For example, someone will call in and ask for an EXAIR. While EXAIR is our company name, it is not the name of any one of our thousands of part numbers.

Over my 18 years with EXAIR, I have learned to translate ambiguous product descriptions and direct the customer to the correct item. I am not alone. The other application engineers on the team can do the same. If not they will consult with the rest of us. Expertise in fluid power is our hallmark and what positions us a leader in Intelligent Compressed Air® products for industry.

Need help? Click the Live Chat icon in the upper left to connect with one of our engineers. Or you call 1-800-903-9247 and ask to speak with an application engineer.

Joe Panfalone

Application Engineer

Phone (513) 671-3322
Fax (513) 671-3363
Web:  www.exair.com
Twitter:  www.twitter.com/exair_jp
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/exair

Posted in Accessories, Air Amplifier, Air Knife, Air Wipe, Cabinet Cooler, Compressed Air, Compressed Air Optimization, Customer Service, Industrial Housekeeping, Industrial Safety Air Guns, Safety Air Gun, Spray Nozzles, Static Elimination, Super Air Nozzle, Vacuum Generators, Vortex Tubes. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

No Need To Tell Anything But The Truth

June 12, 2013 — rrbowman

Last week, naval & military history buffs (like me) observed the anniversary of the Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942). This was a significant victory for the United States, in that it dealt a crushing blow to the Imperial Navy just six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor – a blow that their shipbuilding industry was unable to recover from. It also resulted in the sinking of four of the six carriers that were used for the Pearl Harbor attack. The strategic acumen of the US commanders, as well as the bravery & skill of the men in their charge, is undisputable. But one of the key details in their victory was the fact that they lied their butts off. See, US intelligence had broken the Japanese communications’ secret codes, and had found out that Japanese intelligence had broken theirs. This is where espionage gets tricky: The US played the “they don’t know that WE know that THEY know…” card against the Japanese, and sent out a bunch of false messages about ship locations and logistics conditions, and the Japanese fleet sailed right into one of the most well executed ambushes in military history.

The thing about false information is that it only works out for the party presenting it, and usually not more than once. Bryan Peters wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago, titled “Don’t Be Fooled By Fool’s Gold,” about how we tested a competitor’s air knife, which used more air than they said it did…the obvious problem being that they claimed their air knife cost LESS to operate than ours, but it in fact cost much more.

At EXAIR, we don’t operate like that. Partly because; let’s face it; dishonesty is bad business – what do you tell a customer whose flow meter reveals a gross discrepancy with your published data? THAT’S an uncomfortable conversation right there.

Mostly, though, we just don’t have to. EXAIR has always taken great care in developing the most efficient, most effective Engineered Compressed Air Products that can be made. If you don’t believe it, we can prove it, in a couple of ways:

*Any catalog product comes with a 30 Day Unconditional Guarantee. We invite you to “put it through its paces” for up to a month. If you’re unsatisfied for any reason, we’ll arrange return for full credit.
*For a side-by-side comparison, we can test your existing compressed air product(s) in our Efficiency Lab. We’ll provide comprehensive data, obtained from calibrated instruments, by (with as much humility as I can muster) highly trained experts in the industry. We’ll even document it with photos and video if you like.

And our products’ tests will show just what we publish. When you make the best, you don’t need anything but the truth in order to brag about it.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
(513)671-3322 local
(800)923-9247 toll free
(513)671-3363 fax
Web: http://www.exair.com
Blog: http://blog.exair.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/exair_rb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair

Posted in Compressed Air, Compressed Air Optimization, Customer Service, Sustainability. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

As Seen At The County Fair

June 5, 2013 — rrbowman

Have you ever been in a public place and noticed one of your company’s products in full view of everyone passing by? Those of you who work for car manufacturers, soda bottlers, or snack food makers (like my three friends that I had this conversation with recently do) may not think it’s a big deal (my friends indeed didn’t), so you’ll have to forgive those of us who work mainly in industrial or commercial markets when we get excited to see something that came from The Shop, while we’re walking around the County Fair.

Years ago, I worked for an industrial weighing equipment company. Every year, we were asked to provide a scale for the County Auditor’s booth at the fair – people could step on this scale, and get their weight automatically printed out on one of the Auditor’s business cards. It was a neat little setup, and my friends who recognized that it came from my employer would all crack wise about how obviously inaccurate this scale was. Since I was the one who calibrated the scale, using test weights that I was responsible for having certified by the state, I knew that the numbers on those printed cards said a lot more about the availability of deep fried candy bars on the midway, than the intrinsic accuracy of our precision instrument.

When I go to the fair this summer (and I will, and not just for the deep fried candy bars), I’m certain it’ll be hot that day…which means I’ll have my eye out for the cooling stations that are always set up along the midway, providing a fine mist of cooling water. In addition to a brief respite from the summer heat, I’ll also be looking for EXAIR Atomizing Spray Nozzles, as this would be an ideal application for our External Mix Atomizing Spray Nozzles. They provide independent control of the liquid flow rate – which will be determined solely by the liquid supply pressure – and the air used to atomize the spray: varying the air pressure won’t affect the amount of liquid; only the size/shape of the flow pattern.

Depending on what you need to spray, how much (or little) of it you need to disperse, and over what kind of area, we also have highly efficient Internal Mix designs, and, if your liquid isn’t able to be pressurized, we have Siphon Fed Spray Nozzles as well.  We recently added No Drip options to all models as well, to conserve expensive solutions, and/or to prevent inadvertent stains, runs, etc.

They’re all available in a variety of narrow and wide angle, round and flat fan patterns. For more information, feel free to give us a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
(513)671-3322 local
(800)923-9247 toll free
(513)671-3363 fax
Web: http://www.exair.com
Blog: http://blog.exair.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/exair_rb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair

Posted in Compressed Air, Compressed Air Optimization, Customer Service, Spray Nozzles. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

The Solution To Intermittent Compressed Air System Loads

May 29, 2013 — rrbowman

I recently had the pleasure of assisting an EXAIR Cold Gun user with an application: the parts that the Cold Guns were supposed to be cooling weren’t always getting as cool as they wanted…they’re thermistors being assembled onto a component, and they need to be below a certain temperature when they test them, so they can make sure they’re set properly. Some were getting to the test station while they were at a temperature above their setpoint, which resulted in a rejection of that part. The user wanted to know what could make the Cold Gun work better at times, and worse at other times.

The Cold Gun Aircoolant System has a Vortex Tube with a preset Cold Fraction (that’s the percentage of air supply that is directed to the cold end), so, assuming a constant compressed air supply pressure and temperature, it’ll produce the same amount of cold air flow, at the same low temperature, continuously. The user told me that they used some pneumatic tools in the area, and that these were supplied off the same header as the Cold Guns. We supposed that, during the tools’ operation (which is largely intermittent, as are the Cold Guns’), that portion of the compressed air system may be experiencing a pressure drop, possibly large enough to affect the Cold Guns’ temperature drop.

This could have resulted in a complicated re-plumbing of the compressed air supply in this area, but they were in luck…they had an unused receiver tank, and were able to install it upstream of the feed to the Cold Guns. This resulted in an undisturbed supply of air at a constant 100psig, regardless of whether, or how many, pneumatic tools were being operated at the same time in this area.

This kind of intermittent pressure drop could just as easily affect an Air Knife used for blow off (causing it to not be able to remove moisture/debris in some spots but not others), a Line Vac’s conveyance rate, an E-Vac’s suction power…and the list goes on…not to mention the reduced performance of the pneumatic tools.

If this situation sounds familiar, give us a call. We can look at your supply and demand conditions, and see if a receiver tank might be the solution. Oh, and if you don’t have one, we do: our Model 9500-60 60 Gallon Receiver Tank is ASME rated, and is ideally sized for a wide range of intermittent demands. Let us know if we can help determine if this is a viable solution for your needs.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
(513)671-3322 local
(800)923-9247 toll free
(513)671-3363 fax
Web: http://www.exair.com
Blog: http://blog.exair.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/exair_rb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair

Posted in Accessories, Air Knife, Cold Gun, Compressed Air, Compressed Air Optimization, Customer Service, Line Vac, Uncategorized, Vacuum, Vacuum Generators. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 537 other followers

%d bloggers like this: