Month: April 2009

Tool Cooling Without the Coolant

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Tired of changing out the coolant in your coolant sump?  Tired of the residue that coolant is leaving on the surface of your parts?  Tired of cleaning up the mess that liquid coolant leaves behind?  One of our Spot Cooling Products may be just what you are looking for.

We have a standard Cold Gun, available with either a single or dual hose outlet for fairly small cooling jobs.  We have a High Power unit available as well, for those larger drill bits and saws.  For all those jobs in between, we have an Adjustable Spot Cooler which allows you to dial in just the right amount of cooling to suit the application. 

In just the past few weeks, I have had multiple calls for all three of these units.  I had a customer contact me who needed to cool a small engraving needle.  I quickly recommended our  model 5215 Cold Gun with single hose outlet.  It will provide more than enough cooling to keep the engraving needle at a safe temperature.

Last week, I spoke to a gentleman at an Environmental Engineering Consulting company, who had a customer looking to get away from using liquid coolant, both for the mess it leaves and the expenses of processing and disposing of it.  The end user needed to cool 1/4″ thick, 10″ diameter saw blades.  This was quite a cooling job, so I recommended our High Power Cold Gun, model 5330, with dual point hose kit.  That way, they can split the total cold air flow evenly and aim it at both sides of the blade.

Just the other day I got a call from a machine tool company who actually needs to cool several different drill bit sizes, all on the same machine, from 1/8″-1/2″.  Since not all the bits required the same amount of cooling, one or the other of our Cold Guns was not the best product.  Thus, I recommended our model 3925 Adjustable Spot Cooler.  This will allow them to achieve any amount of cooling in between the ranges of our standard and High Power Cold Guns.  The dual hose kit can be used to direct cold air on both sides of a larger bit, or aimed at the same location, to focus cooling on a smaller bit. 

All three of these Spot Coolers operate using Vortex Tube technology, which means that they instantly produce cold air, and will remain doing so as long as they have consistent compressed air supply.  So, if you are tired of dealing with messy coolant, it may be time for you to give one of our products a try. 

Emily Mortimer
Application Engineer
emilymortimer@exair.com

Save the Headache with a Cabinet Cooler

Published on by Kirk Edwards2 Comments

Remember last summer when you had to climb up into the rafters to fix the electrical control which overheated? Why it was installed in such a difficult place to reach is always a mystery.

Or how about the drive you burned up because the fan filter was clogged up with dust? Fans and filters just don’t belong in some environments.

And don’t forget the camera that fried in its inspection housing due to its hot environment. Just because it is made to look into the furnace does not mean it can always take the heat.

These are just a few examples of the problems which generally arise as the temperatures of spring and summer rise. A Cabinet Cooler solution for the “out of sight, out of mind” control box which is mounted up in the rafters can be set up on a thermostat which will turn the Cabinet Cooler off in the winter and back on again in the hotter spring and summer. It is an “out of sight, out of mind” solution, which does not result in another trip into the rafters next spring.

That control box with the clogged filter and fan will benefit from removing the fan and filter and replacing them with an NHP Cabinet Cooler. This unit creates a continuous purge inside the cabinet of just 1 SCFM until cooling is needed. Then it turns on and provides the necessary cooling. This keeps out the constant dust and debris while cooling at the same time.

And the camera looking into the furnace won’t need to be replaced when outfitted with our high temperature Cabinet Cooler, which is built to withstand environmental temperatures up to 200F.

Cabinet Coolers can save you the headaches year after year. A simple and quick solution for many overheating problems with low maintenance and low cost. Once you outfit a cabinet with an EXAIR Cabinet Cooler, you can forget about those headaches for good.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

Snap Crackle Pop

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That’s the sound you hear just as your vision system gets fried by a static discharge. A customer that makes faux veneered particle board was having problems with blowing out their vision systems due to static discharges.

They apply a plastic sheet with printed wood grain onto the board. The plastic has a strong static charge on it that discharges throughout the process. Most of the time this event is inconsequential except when it zaps their vision reader.

Installing a Super Ion Air Knife Model #111048, they blew ionized air onto the plastic film as it came off the roll and eliminated the static charges that zapped vision systems. The savings in replacing one vision system paid for the ion air knife.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com

Adding Compressor Capacity Without Adding a Compressor?

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

OK, so exactly how can I add capacity back into my compressor system without actually buying a new compressor?  The answer is quite simple, you control the demand within the applications using compressed air. The way in which you do this is by using an engineered nozzle solution.

Take the following as an example; a CNC milling application uses 1/4″ Schedule 40  pipe aimed at the fixtured part to blow it off with extreme force at 80 PSIG inlet pressure after the machining process has taken place. The material being blown is a simple mix of coolant and aluminum chips.
A 1/4 ” Schedule 40 pipe can consume upwards of 140 SCFM under these conditions.

The simple act of screwing a model 1100 1/4 NPT Super Air Nozzle onto the pipe drops the air consumption down to 14 SCFM. Yes, that is 1/10th the air consumption of the previous scenario. The next simple step of installing a compressed air filter and pressure regulator will allow clean, dry air to enter the nozzle and lower the input pressure to something more reasonable, say 50 PSIG, which allows for the air used to drop below 10 SCFM.

So, with the addition of a single nozzle with filter and pressure regulator, you can drop the air consumption rate from 140 SCFM to 10 SCFM or less!  That is an air savings of 93%. In this scenario, that is 33 horsepower worth of air compressor. AND, this is the savings for just one nozzle. Imagine if there were 10 or more stations set up to be exactly like this one. The air savings just keeps compounding for each installation.

When you see applications within your own plant that utilize plain pipe or copper tube without any engineered nozzle on the end, these can be gold mine opportunities for saving your company on compressed air costs. You also get better performance from the revised system with nozzles because you are now choking the flow back to only that which is needed by the nozzle. In a way, it is allowing your compressor system to work smarter and not harder.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com