Line Vac Paired With a Chip Vac Container

June 9, 2010 — bdfarno

The EXAIR Line Vac is used for a variety of applications across multiple industries and has proved to be very versatile.  One common application we have for these units is to remove chips, trimmings, or debris from an area of operation, like is shown below where chips from drive train differentials are removed using this setup with a 2” Line Vac. The Line Vac is positioned at the top of this custom assembly and the bottom shroud fits over the drive train casting. It has internal nozzles to positive air flow to direct the chips into the vacuum flow of the Line Vac.

For some of these applications the discharge port of the hose is just aimed into a bin or some form of a drum without a lid or filter anything to keep dust at bay. In other operations it may be going straight into something as small as a 5 gallon bucket.   Rather than blowing all of this debris, or sand, or dirt into air an open top container and risk it getting stirred up and released into the air, or missing the container and falling onto the floor you could channel it all into one container with one of our Chip Vac Containers.

 

            The Chip Vac systems are offered in 55 Gallon Drum, 30 Gallon Drums, and a 5 Gallon Container sizes.  Each of these is fitted with an EXAIR .1 micron filter bag that is both washable, and replaceable.  The advantage to using one of these Chip Vac Drum Lid Assemblies is that your debris can be contained into the correctly sized container for your operation and all of the exhaust air will be filtered by the .1 micron bag which means your trimmings, or chips, or sand will all remain in the container rather than blowing out onto the floor or going back into the atmosphere of your shop.

            The 30 Gallon Lid and the 55 Gallon Lid and 5 Gallon Lid all have a 2″ NPT Bung opening that you can adapt to fit your Line Vac hose size.  Pair the lid with a matching size drum dolly and when your drum is full simply remove the lid, wheel the full drum out of the way and a new empty drum in its place.

            We have seen this work in multiple applications as collecting sand from a drilling operation that was being performed on a sand casting, to material trim removal and metal chip removal from machining operations.   If you want more information on these or have a similar application feel free to contact me.

Brian Farno

Application Engineer

BrianFarno@EXAIR.com

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Transfer of Glass beads With Heavy Duty Line Vac Improve Road Marking Application

March 5, 2010 — ndraker

I’m sure we have all had the chance to drive down a newly paved stretch of road which has just received its lane markings in yellow and white paint. While you are driving you can’t help but notice that the lines on the road almost seem to glow as if they were back-lit by some lighting source embedded within the paved surface because it is so bright. The lane markings are made in such a highly reflective way to insure visibility during heavy rain and fog conditions.

In a manner of speaking, the source of the light is embedded within the painted surface itself. When these lines are painted, the paint actually has thousands of small glass beads mixed in with the paint as it is applied to the road. Glass beads have the physical property that they can refract and reflect light back to its source, your headlights. And so the glowing effect is achieved.

What does this have to do with EXAIR? Our 2″ Heavy Duty Line Vac Model 150200 is used to replenish the glass bead hopper on the painting truck from a larger bulk holding tank on another truck. Plenty of compressed air is available on the bulk truck as a 185 CFM compressor is also on board. So, it made perfect sense to be able to use the conveyor. The hopper on the paint truck can easily be re-loaded with about 300 lbs. of bead in less than 10 minutes time. Before, the implementation of the Heavy Duty Line Vac, the customer had to purchase their glass bead in 40 lb. bags and load the hopper manually. A process that took every bit of 1/2 hour with all the climbing and handling of the bags. Model 150200 2″ Heavy Duty Line Vac was selected for its highest available conveying capacity and also for its ability to resist abrasion from product running through the inside and from regular handling during use on the road.

With the new set up, the feed truck can easily pull up along side the painting vehicle, throw the hose into the hopper, turn on the compressed air and it is that easy. No more bags to deal with, no more spillage, no more risking operators climbing up and down from the feed hopper to load it.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

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Are you in the pharmaceutical industry? Have you ever had this problem?

February 26, 2010 — ndraker

In the pharmaceutical industry it would seem that a lot of time and energy is spent on packaging and re-packaging tablets, gels, capsules and other forms of medication. One example that I just became aware of was the need to empty individual container bottles so that the product could be re-packaged due to a mis-print on label applied to the bottle.

In this scenario, the customer has to empty the bottles and get the product back into their packaging machine hopper. Besides being a real pain to have to open each bottle and empty, the customer also has to get these tablets back up into the packaging machine. The tool they decided to use was our 1-1/4″ 316 Stainless Steel Line Vac. The Line Vac had to be made of 316 stainless in order to be considered a normally accepted material for use in applications dealing with medications. The FDA regulates this.

The facts that the 316 stainless Line Vac was a normally stocked item for us and also that it was meant exactly for this type of “bucket and ladder” type conveying application made it a perfect fit for this particular application.

If you are in the pharmaceutical packaging business and can recall where you may have had similar applications for packaging, let us know.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

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