Month: March 2009

More is Less

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

Less WORK for you that is. All of our products have some related products available which make the installation easier and the application better. These items are typically found in an accessories section for the product or related products section on our website. These additional items help with efficiency, mounting, plumbing and controlling our products.

All of our products can use a filter separator.  We offer them properly sized and ready to go with whatever you purchase from EXAIR. Many of our products also benefit from a pressure regulator, allowing you to run the product as efficiently as possible. Every product which uses a filter and/or regulator can be bought in a kit, preventing you from having to size and source them separately.

Once you purchase a product, you will need to install and mount it into your application. We have a Universal Air Knife Mounting System which holds and positions any style Air Knife. We have swivel fittings for our Super Air Nozzles up to 1/2 NPT. A magnetic base comes in handy when placing an Air Nozzle on a machine or conveyor frame.

EXAIR carries air line supply hose to feed our products with compressed air. It can be bought in 10′ lengths and in 3/8″ or 1/2″ inside diameter. Our Air Knife Plumbing Kits simplify trying to find all the right fittings for a clean plumbing job. The fittings and hose included are all the right size for the job, preventing any restriction of air supply. They provide an easy way to plumb up our longer knives which require two and three compressed air inlets.

The EXAIR EFC, Electronic Flow Control, can operate any blowoff product efficiently. The EFC will control the air by turning it on and off as needed for the application. The air flow is controlled by a photo eye and solenoid valve. Again this product is complete and ready to go so you do not have to assemble all of the products yourself. And a simple ball valve can come in handy for the manual applications we solve.

So you see, EXAIR offers MORE and we can make it LESS WORK installing the products. You will use LESS AIR when controlling pressure and keeping your air clean. And you will spend LESS TIME looking for the associated products. And as we all know – less work, less air and less time equals more money saved.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

Pneumatic Conveyor For Plastic Pellets

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As companies are pushed for better productivity, the need for operator intervention has to be minimized. The EXAIR Line Vacs are used extensively in the extrusion industry to convey plastic pellets and regrind to their extruders.

Blank CD disks are a fraction of the cost they were several years ago because of an innovative machine that completes a product from plastic pellets to the finished product out the other end. When they punch the holes in the center disk, they capture the waste piece with an EXAIR Line Vac and return it to the feed hopper to be added to virgin material. This saves on material and labor costs and eliminates disposal costs.

Another example. This extrusion company has several lines that had to have a person load plastic pellets into a hopper. Using an EXAIR Line Vac they were able to automate that function. (see video).

There are countless other applications where a Line Vac can cost effectively transfer material. If you have an application where you think an EXAIR Line Vac could be of value, call one of our Application Engineers at 1-800-903-9247. They will review your application with you and make their recommendation. EXAIR then will back it up with a 30 day evaluation. If for any reason you are not satisfied, you can return it for full credit within that time.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com

Abrasive Material Conveying

Published on by Neal Raker2 Comments

In my daily life here at EXAIR, it would seem that I run into the same types of applications. One good example involves the customer conveying highly abrasive materials with a Line Vac that was not the most suitable unit for the job.

The customer was conveying a fine glass dust with our Model 6064 (2″ Stainless Line Vac). The customer was operating the Line Vac at about 10 psig. Needless to say, the glass wore through the line vac in about 8 weeks time. After some discussion about the application, I recommended the customer go with our Model 150200 (2″ Heavy Duty Line Vac) as a replacement due to the nature of its construction being made from a hardened tool steel.  The customer has had the new unit in place for 3 weeks now. Initial inspections indicate that there is no visible wear.

The Heavy Duty Line Vac was introduced to our Air Operated Conveyor product line to help in this exact scenario. Whether sand, ground glass, Perlite or even garnet, the Heavy Duty models are built to last under very severe applications.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

Fax Machines: A fading technology, or contemporary art?

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If you thought the fax machine was fading away as an outdated technology in favor of emails and online discussion boards, you thought wrong.  Well, maybe not totally wrong. 

Fax machines in their conventional sense may be dwindling.  But, one guy at a multidisciplinary arts center who called me up last week has found a new use for them.  The center is planning to use two of them as part of a contemporary art display at the museum in an upcoming exhibit.

The fax machines will be placed facing  each other.  One fax machine will receive a fax, print it out, scan it, and fax it back to the other fax machine, who sent the initial fax.  Then the original fax machine will receive the fax and re-fax it to the second machine.  This loop will run continuously while the exhibit is on display. 

This action generates quite a lot of static, with the papers frequently passing through the rollers inside each machine.  As mentioned in some of our previous blog posts regarding static, roller feed applications are often stopped due to static causing the feed material to cling and create jams.  Of course, frequent jam-ups would not be a desired part of this artistic display. 

But, I was able to offer him a simple and effective solution with little to no interference with the artistic nature of the setup.  One 9″ Ion Bar mounted on each machine, each connected to our dual outlet power supply, would eliminate virtually all of the generated static, allowing the faxing back and forth to continue flawlessly throughout the exhibition.

Emily Mortimer
Application Engineer
emilymortimer@exair.com