Month: April 2010

E-Vac Brake Bleeder

Published on by Brian Farno3 Comments

     This past weekend I was working on two separate friends’ motorcycles trying to prepare them for a track day. In the past month or so all three of us had undertaken the task of rebuilding our brake calipers, along with installing new stainless steel braided brake lines. Once the calipers were rebuilt and the new lines were installed on the bikes, we all realized the fun was just beginning. We were now to the point of no return, and we were faced with the task of filling the new system with brake fluid. But first, we would have to bleed the entire system of all the air that was trapped inside.

     First, we decided to try the “traditional” method of pump the lever up where you have one person hold the lever while the other works the bleeder valve at the caliper. While this did start to work after about an hour it was not getting us to that peak performance we were looking for in the amount of time we wanted to get there.

     Next, we decided to try a small vacuum pump that you pump by hand. This method had worked well for us in the past on other occasions but, just seemed to be taking a lot longer because of the volume of air in the “new” system. This is when a light bulb flipped to the “on” position in my head and I thought, “ Why not use an E-Vac Generator in place of this little hand pump and get this job done a lot faster and maybe easier?“

     So, that’s when the engineering began, we created a compressed air driven brake bleeding system. Seeing that the hand pump was generating at most 30” of Hg when sealed off and approximately 15” of Hg when bleeding the brakes, we decided to try the model #800003. This E-Vac will provide up to 21” of Hg, so we thought it would be a good starting point. With the E-Vac in place, we all three took our positions and began bleeding our brakes utilizing the new bleeding system we created.

A picture of our E-Vac brake bleeding unit is below. I realize it is not an ideal condition but it proved our theory.

     After implementing the new bleeding system we realized you can bleed an entire dry brake system with one person faster than if you were using the traditional or hand pump system. The nice thing about this system is that it is simple to use, and you can bleed the brakes all by yourself.

     While we used a small E-Vac from the EXAIR catalog, it would be rather easy to size and implement a larger E-Vac to be used on virtually any hydraulic system that needs to be bled.

Brian Farno

Application Engineer

brianfarno@exair.com

 

April Recap

Published on by Bryan Peters1 Comment

I can happily report that my daughter did not disown me after my blog last week for Earth Day featured her. In fact, she said it was pretty cool. Those aren’t words I hear from my 13-year old daughter all that often.

After seeing my blog entry last week, our Kirk Edwards decided to take family involvement to a whole new level by enlisting his son to perform bicycle stunts just to feed his blog. Poor guy is healing nicely, I am happy to report. The rest of our kids can’t be pleased with where this is heading…

But on to this week’s blog. Some of us at EXAIR were discussing how fast the month of April has gone by the other day. It really has been a busy month. In classic TV fashion, I decided that the easiest way to fill an entry this week was with a recap episode.

April-2010

April 1 – Professor Penurious makes his debut to launch the EXAIR Efficiency Lab (he’s an odd duck…)

April 1 – EXAIR “Premium” kits for Chip Vac, Drum Vac and Heavy Duty Dry Vac became available (premium kits include the drum)

April 3 – Initial stocking inventory arrives in Russia for our new distributor in St. Petersburg (Здравствуйте!)

April 8 – Visit from our distributor in Israel (shalom!)

April 15 – EXAIR CE-compliant Cabinet Cooler Systems are released (leading the way, as usual)

April 15 – Tax Day #!%#* (’nuff said)

April 22 – Earth Day (EXAIR is a responsible corporate citizen)

April 22-25 – EXAIR products featured at Ecotec 2010 trade show in Athens, Greece (γεια σας!)

April 29 – EXAIR LinkedIn company page goes live

As you can see, it was a very busy April at EXAIR.  We are working hard every day, every week and every month to give customers the information, products and services that they need to save money, save time and improve their operations.

May shapes up to be just as busy as April.  Two international distributors are set to visit EXAIR and another round of new products are due to be released.

Stay tuned for more news.  You can catch the latest on Twitter at twitter.com/exair

Bryan Peters
President
bryanpeters@exair.com

Without Problems, What Would You Do With Yourself?

Published on by Kirk Edwards1 Comment

One of my Dad’s outlooks on life goes like this; life is nothing more than a series of problems. If he did not have something to fix, negotiate, extinguish or solve he wouldn’t have much to do. The interesting part about his perspective is that problems are not a nuisance to him; they are simply part of the plan. He has relayed this message to me over the years in hopes of helping me react well to adversity; but sometimes it is hard to find a solution before the next problem arises. So when do you find the time to be proactive? 

For instance last week upon arriving home – I mean only moments after pulling in the driveway, my 6-year-old son wipes out while ramping his bike. Here is the result…

         

A badly smashed finger. OUCH! That was about a week ago, that fingernail is getting darker by the day and well on its way to falling off.

So what’s the problem? Sooth the boy and then the finger, check the ramp for integrity, check the bike for damage, find the damage and straighten the seat. Problem solved. 

Dad’s theory says if you don’t have an emergency or fire to put out, go work on the next problem (“The List”). So I took some time to check some other springtime equipment. I looked at the other kids’ bikes just in case. Then moved on to make sure swing set bolts are tight,  checked the trampoline springs (which really just means a good excuse for me to jump on it) and other springtime maintenance.

This, I know, is mirrored by our work lives as well. One fire after another must be put out. The normal workload piles up along the way. Many companies working with fewer people due to the economy. The projects on “The List” we get to in between putting out fires – or at least we should. In our work lives those emergencies bring to light other situations which also need attention. It takes focus and perspective not to get overwhelmed with putting out fires, but instead take advantage of time to fix other things on “The List” which also need attention.

We talk to customers on a daily basis who have an item on their list which says – Reduce Compressed Air Consumption. It is an item that falls down the priority list as the emergencies come up, as the product continues to roll out the door and as we get busier. Many times it is a large system approach to reduce compressed air consumption and that can be overwhelming.

Our EXAIR Efficiency Lab can help you in between putting out fires. We can tackle one little blow off area at a time and provide air savings feedback, including ROI for each little compressed air application. We can solve one of the problems on “your list” while you are called away for a different problem. The Lab’s Product Efficiency Survey is a tool used to provide EXAIR the information about your compressed air application, we can take it from there. The information we provide along the way can be tallied each time we optimize a small area of your system.

This tool will help you be proactive between putting out fires. It is after all, just another problem to get taken care of; And if you didn’t have any problems to solve what would you be doing anyway?

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

Ultrasonic Predictive Maintenance

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A while back my daughter was mowing the grass. She drove the mower up to me and said that it started sounding different. I checked it out and sure enough the belt had flipped over and was riding on its flat side rather than its V side.

Back before all the electronic monitors on our autos, savvy owners could predict developing problems just by changes in the usual sounds. Ultra Sonic Predictive maintenance is simply that. It is an inspection method by which sounds emitted from equipment are compared against an established sound benchmark of a healthy system.

The advantages of ultra sonic inspection

  • Does not require expensive complicated equipment
  • Can be used in noisy environments
  • Systems do not have to be shut down to inspect
  • Provides early warning indicators
  • Provides important data for, trend analysis, need to watch lists, and an interface with analysis software

EXAIR has an Ultra Sonic Leak Detector (ULD) which for the most part is promoted for detecting compressed air leaks. Since it is a sound detector though, it lends itself well to ultra sonic predictive maintenance. Here are a few examples.

    Bearing Problems
    Ultrasonic inspection and monitoring of bearings is by far the most reliable method for detecting early bearing failure and conditions such as lack of lubrication. Bearing analysis requires prior knowledge of the sound that a “healthy” bearing makes. A log that notes the date, location of the test area, sensitivity setting, and LED display panel reading should be available for regular inspection of bearings. A bearing will emit ultrasonic sound even when it is “healthy”. When the bearing system begins to deteriorate, the ultrasonic sound will change long before problems are detectable through any heat and vibration monitoring systems.
    Air brakes
    Air leaks in trucks can be a source of many problems. This is particularly true when a leak is small enough that it cannot be heard over the sound of a running engine, but is large enough to empty the air tanks overnight. By tracing the air supply lines and all of its couplings, the ULD can accurately isolate a leak in a fraction of the time normally needed.
    Electrical
    In electrical applications, the prior knowledge of the sound a healthy circuit makes is vital to make useful comparisons. Expensive equipment is not needed to check the conductivity of insulators when the ULD is used. In areas that are close to high voltage insulators (such as switch yards), the tubular extension and adapter is the appropriate tool to use with the ULD. This accessory is particularly useful when checking insulators because the circuit does not need to be interrupted
    Cracked Rubber V-belts
    Any crack in a moving rubber belt will emit ultrasound when the crack passes by the pulley.  Prior knowledge of the sound a healthy belt will give you a benchmark to compare against.
    Dry Fire Sprinkler Systems
    In a dry system air pressure holds back the flow of water. Small leaks in the system requires compressed air to be added. Simple enough but leaks tend to grow. Enough leakage could overwhelm the compressor capacity resulting in all the sprinklers activating resulting in massive water damage.In a plant where loud noise levels often exist, it is very difficult to locate leaks by merely listening for them. Most plant noises are in the normal audio range while air escaping from a small orifice will be in the ultrasonic range. The ULD or will ignore the background noise and detect only the ultrasonic sounds that are generated.For more information feel free to contact me or one of the application engineers here at EXAIR.