When traveling overseas a few years ago I was forced to “Test the waters” of foods I would not normally eat. (Or even consider for that matter) Now I didn’t just dive right in to eating the mystery meat that may or may not have been someone’s pet the day before. I started slowly by sampling items I knew with other vegetables or side dishes I would not normally eat. By the end of the trip I am pretty sure I had consumed more than my fair share of shrimp and a few other things I still don’t know what they were. This lesson to test the waters is something that can even happen to your compressed air operations.
During numerous application phone calls and discussion I have been asked, “Well how can I justify implementing all these nozzles?” Well I have an answer that you can use even if you aren’t looking to start anything new and just want to know how much air you are currently using. The answer to this is to “Test the waters” by installing a Digital Flow Meter anywhere you wish to know your air consumption.
The Digital Flow Meter will allow you to measure in real-time the air consumption of your system. These can be installed on your main compressed air line to check the volume of compressed air the compressor is putting out, or even select a single machine and install it to see which device is using the most compressed air in your system. If you have multiples of the same machine then install it one of the machines to get a good baseline reading for how your machines currently run, then implement new compressed air processes to allow you to see the benefits of the new process compared to the old.
This also is an ideal installation and use of the Summing Remote Display which will allow you to monitor the air consumption up to 50 ft. away from the Digital Flow Meter. The Summing Remote Display allows you to view the current usage from the DFM, sum the total usage for a 24 hour period of time, or a straight cumulative usage that will track up to 9,999 SCFM. This would even permit a breakdown of per shift usage. To see if one operator is using more compressed air than others to perform the same task.
All in all if you are debating on whether or not to look into an engineered compressed air blow off operation then why not sample one entire machine and have sufficient data to determine the return on investment of the new system.
If you would like to discuss the Digital Flow Meter, Summing Remote Display, or any compressed air application feel free to contact us.
Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com