Month: April 2009

Reducing False Rejects in Vision System

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In the midst of these tough economic times, companies are looking for all sorts of ways to cut costs.  One way to do this is to reduce wasted material. 

A large automotive manufacturer was wasting a lot of perfectly good rubber valve stem seals, due to false rejects from the vision inspection system, caused by dust on the seals.  Static electricity was likely contributing to the dust particles sticking on the parts.  So, an Ion Air Jet was the perfect solution.  It will provide a stream of ionized air to both eliminate the static charge causing the particles to stick, as well as actually blowing the dust off the seals, so it would not be detected by the vision system. 

Because the parts are rather small and lightweight, a pressure regulator was also recommended, so the pressure could be dialed down to a level that would sufficiently remove the dust, without disturbing the seals themselves.  Not to mention that decreasing the inlet air pressure is another way to create cost savings, as it decreases the compressed air consumption of the unit. 

So, we were able to create savings in two ways, with the installation of one compressed air product and an accessory. 

Emily Mortimer
Application Engineer
emilymortimer@exair.com

Air Nozzle Prepares Surface for Date Code

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

An ink jet date code was delivered with poor quality onto a water bottle due to the residual water left from the bottle washing operation. Our customer also needed to keep air consumption to a minimum, and have some adjustability for different sized bottles.

Since the target area was only a small portion of the bottle, an air nozzle provided a good solution.

The EXAIR 2″ Super Air Nozzle and a shim set for the nozzle allowed us to fulfill the minimal air requirement request. The shim set for the nozzle allows customers to install thinner shims to minimize air flow while maintaining pressure through the nozzle. Maintaining full pressure also maximizes force applied to the target surface. This nozzle and shim combo, at 80 PSIG, can flow from 9-30SCFM without losing force, which can occur when simply lowering pressure.

Our Stay Set Hose completed the requirements by providing adjustment to the position of the nozzle. This product allowed the customer to move the air nozzle as needed for different sized bottles.

And as always, the OSHA requirements for noise levels and dead end pressure of compressed air products were maintained.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

Powder Removal

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A company that assembles parts with powdered Loc Tite®  is having problems with residual powder on the assembly surfaces that is causing problems in a later painting operation.

It was suggested that they use a Vac U Gun with a brush attachment to vacuum the dust away. This solved their problem.

To expand further on a good idea, they then wanted to automate the operation so they contacted me for more ideas. They had a pick-and-place robotic arm that inserted the Loc Tite®-ed bolts into their respective holes. So it was a simple matter of replacing the Vac U Gun with a Line Vac  and a section of hose, with the brush attachment connected to the end of the hose. 

This assembly was then attached to the side of the robotic arm and programmed to move over the installed bolt, turn on the compressed air, and vacuum the residual powder all in one operation.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com

Air Amplifier saves 70 SCFM in Application

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

This application comes to us courtesy of our official distributor in India. They have a customer who is a bottler of a major, worldwide brand of soft drink. This customer was having difficulty with an application where they needed to blow rinse water off the neck of a soda bottle to prepare it for a date code.

The customer was utilizing (3) of what I will call a “duck foot” nozzle. You have probably seen them before. They are those cheap, plastic nozzles that are about 50 mm. wide at one end and have a 1/4 pipe thread on the other. They are usually blue or yellow in color and use about 26 SCFM @ 80 psig. Anyway, the customer was trying to use these plastic nozzles with very little success as the date code was still smearing due to water still being present in the area where they were printing.

Our distributor was invited to the plant to review the application and “see what could be done”. The distributor left the customer with one Model 120021 (1-1/4″ Super Air Amplifier) for trial. The customer installed the Super Air Amplifier and operated it at 80 PSIG.  Upon our distributor’s return to the plant for a follow up visit, they found the customer had been operating non-stop without any interruption to the date code printing application. As an added bonus, use of the Super Air Amplifier saved the customer 70 SCFM of air volume that could either be claimed as straight energy savings or used for another application. Not bad for a solution that cost less than $150.00. 

If you figure the air savings, the Super Air Amplifier will pay for itself in less than 150 hours of operation. If you figure a two shift operation (80 hours/week) that is less than two weeks to pay back the cost of the Super Air Amplifier. And, this is just one instance of a blow-off application. Think about your own plant and how many places you have something similar set up.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com