Month: July 2009

Cold Gun Increased Cutting Productivity By 1/3

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

I recently visited a local sign manufacturing company. They make signs which are fabricated out of aluminum sheet, PVC and other similar materials. The lettering used in their signs is usually of the 3D variety which involves a lot of fabrication to create.

The customer was using a CNC router with a mist coolant system to cut the lettering out of the sheet materials. During the cutting process, the customer would make 3 passes to fully cut through the material with the cutter. During my visit, we were able to install the Cold Gun onto the router head and aim the cooling nozzles at the cutter.

The result was that they were able to make the same cut in only 2 passes instead of three, saving the customer a large chunk of time in the process. Besides the productivity gain on the cutting, the customer no longer has to clean the parts prior to assembly and paint. This part of the process also resulted in a large time savings as well as the parts no longer had to be wiped down with a rag and solvent when finished.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

Air Knife For Drying Bottles Before Labeling

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Ever tried to glue a piece of paper or plastic to a wet surface?  It doesn’t usually work so well.  I was contacted by a customer recently who worries about this problem every day. 

He works for a company that makes and bottles various beverages including wine and grape juices.  One of the juice lines uses PET bottles.  After being filled, the bottles go through a washing cycle then need to be dried before moving on to the labeler.  If the bottles aren’t properly dried, the labels won’t stick, and the bottle will be rejected. 

The bottles are a maximum of 12″ tall.  So, I recommended using 2pc of our 12″ Stainless Steel Super Air Knife.  The ideal mounting position is to have the knives mounted vertically, one on each side of the bottle conveyor.  Then the knives should be rotated to about a 45-degree angle opposite the direction of travel of the bottles.  This will essentially wipe all the water from the entire circumference of the bottle and blow it away from where the dried bottles are traveling.  This will prevent any blown off water from re-wetting the bottles entering the labeler. 

Dry bottles entering the labeler ensures that the labels will properly adhere to the bottle surface, and will lead to fewer rejects.

Emily Mortimer
Application Engineer
emilymortimer@exair.com

Air Savings at a Bakery

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

A major national bakery has begun an air savings program and has successfully proven air savings by installing EXAIR’s Super Air Knives in the place of pipe with drilled holes. That success has led to other areas of the bakery which could benefit from retrofitting homemade blow offs with engineered compressed air products.

The latest situation was a de-panning application; a spot in production where the baked goods were loosened from the baking pan with a jet of air prior to getting dumped on to a belt.

The old setup had ten 3/8 schedule 40 pipes capped off, with a 9/64″ hole drilled in each pipe. An estimated air consumption of 22 SCFM based on their air pressure. EXAIR retrofitted the application with ten Model 1100 Super Air Nozzles which require only 14 SCFM each at 80 PSIG. A savings of 8 SCFM per nozzle totals 80 SCFM. That is approximately 20 Hp horsepower of compressed air saved with one retrofit!

The benefits of EXAIR’s products continue to encourage customers to find areas which can be improved and money saved. Many times, such as this example, the retrofit is very simple. The customer only needed a 3/8 FNPT x 1/4 MNPT adapter and the job was done.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

Cooling Gem Stone Posts

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In the many years that I have worked for EXAIR, I continually come across new applications for the Cold Gun.

I was contacted by a customer who makes costume jewelry. They secure the gems into their posts by soldering with precious metal. In some of the more intricate designs, the joint has to be cooled quickly before the heat has an effect on nearby posts. Using a model 5215 Cold Gun, they were able to control heat migration and in doing so they could move on to the next post without having to wait for it to cool. This increased production by 15%.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com