Month: March 2009

Stay Efficient Under Pressure

Published on by Kirk Edwards1 Comment

 If you keep your end-use applications down to the minimum required pressure for success you contribute to potentially lowering the overall pressure output of your compressor, which will reduce your energy consumption.

Step number six in Six Steps to Optimization is:
1. Measure your air consumption
2. Locate and fix any compressed air leaks in the system
3. Upgrade your end use blow off applications with engineered products
4. Turn off the compressed air when not needed for production
5. Use intermediate storage of compressed air near the point of use
6. Control the pressure at the point of use to minimize consumption

This is a very simple and easy process. All it requires is a pressure regulator. Installing a pressure regulator at all of your point of use applications will allow you to lower the pressure of these applications to the lowest pressure possible for success. Lowering the pressure of the application also lowers the air consumption. And it naturally follows that lower air consumption equals energy savings.

A compressed air system, with the proper tools and maintenance, can be optimized for efficiency. Many of the steps you can take, such as the pressure regulators described here and the steps I have outlined for the past six weeks can be easily accomplished.

Consider EXAIR an ally in the battle against compressed air waste and inefficiencies. Contact us with a project you know needs to be retrofitted with efficient products or the next time you plumb up a new application.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

When Money Is Tight, Get Creative

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When money is tight, companies get creative in solving problems. I had a customer from a food processing plant asking me for a solution to get rid of their waste water stream. Due to new sewage disposal regulations, they are required to monitor and pre-treat wastewater before sending it down the drain.

Being a start-up company in a down economy, they did not have the financial resources for any capital equipment. On the other hand, without a way to dispose of their waste water, they were out of business.

Using our model #6196 Reversible Drum Vac, they pumped their waste tanks into 55 gallon drums. These drums then were trucked to a nearby company that recently installed the equipment to process their waste stream.

This worked out well for both companies. It provided revenues for the receiving company to defray the cost of their new equipment and a window of time for our customer to position themselves financially for the necessary future capital investment.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com

When Do I Use a Vortex Tube?

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

When customers call in with a cooling application, they naturally gravitate to the Vortex Tube as their first choice of solutions. This is understandable since they are primarily known for their cooling ability.

Last week, I mentioned that cooling was a relative thing. This week, I would like to dive into a bit more about when to consider using a Vortex Tube.  The primary purpose for a Vortex Tube is to achieve some amount of temperature change within a compressed air flow. That chilled airflow can then serve any one of a number of purposes.

Usually, to consider using a Vortex Tube, the application does need to be rather small in nature, something like cooling an end mill or perhaps keeping a small enclosed space cool.  Using a Vortex Tube to cool a small room or a closet would not be considered a reasonable use.

Another reason to use a Vortex Tube would be to bring the temperature of an object down below room temperature for testing purposes or perhaps for calibration. Again, the size of the object to be cooled does have to be taken into consideration to determine whether vortex cooling is a viable option. 

People will sometimes ask whether a given Vortex Tube cooling  idea is possible and technically speaking the application probably is possible but whether it is viable from a cost standpoint is a whole other question that has to be considered.

Vortex Tubes have two attributes that make them a very attractive option for customers. They are: 1. Reliability – no moving parts = no maintenance. 2. Convenient to use and compact. Even with all the negative things that come about how expensive compressed air is to produce, there really has not been a more affordable and reliable method for spot or small enclosure cooling.

Admittedly, this article only scratches the surface  of when Vortex Tubes should be considered for an application. If you need help determining which of our cooling solutions would be the best choice for your application, feel free to send us a note or call. We would be glad to talk things through with you and determine what the best path might be.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

Wind, Rewind, Wind, Rewind, Wind…JAM!

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Sound familiar?  That is what a converting equipment manufacturer who called me last week was experiencing.  They were making a machine for a 48″ wide aluminum web.  It was to unroll the web from a master roll, send it through an acid bath, then a heating system to dry the web, and finally an electrostatic oiler, before being rewound onto another roll. 

However, as indicated by the title of this post, the process did not always run smoothly.  The actions of unwinding and rewinding generate quite a lot of static buildup due to friction between the aluminum layers on the roll, which eventually causes the web to jam up.  Then, they have to stop the machine, unjam the web, remove any damaged portions, realign the web, and re-start the process.  This can add up to a significant amount of down time, depending on how many jam-ups occurred in a given day. 

My suggestion of a solution for his problem was a pretty straight-forward one.  I recommended that they install 1pc of our 48″ Super Ion Air Knife at both the master roll from which the aluminum was being unwound, and at the roll onto which the finished web was being wound.  The 48″ unit will exactly cover the width of the web, removing static from across the entire surface. 

The airflow from the knife will actually serve dual purposes.  It will carry the ions to the surface of the web.  It will also help to float or push the web along in the process, helping to keep it flat, and moving along smoothly, onto and off of the rolls.  This will allow the process to continue uninterrupted, with virtually no downtime due to machine jam-ups.

Emily Mortimer
Application Engineer
emilymortimer@exair.com