Month: June 2011

A Friend In Need

Published on by Lee Evans1 Comment

Recently, I undertook a project to help a friend replace the head gasket on his Jeep.  Like most people, my time is generally spoken for, and new commitments can be hard to tackle.  Nevertheless, I’m not one to refuse a friend in need so I found myself with a Cherokee parked in my garage.

In appreciation for the help, my friend obliged to assist in any way he could.  The biggest helping hand was in removing the cast iron cylinder head from the engine block.  Many hands make light work, but it still felt heavy…

As we tore the engine down, checked valve seats and surface tolerances, the time passed quickly.  We ended up spending a few late nights in my garage to finish the project, but after some hard work the job was a success.

Helping my friend felt great, but it also strained my time and my productivity.  It make me think about how much we all rely on a certain level of productivity, and when it declines, the effects are easily noticed.  In the days after the Jeep was back on the road and my evenings returned to their normal level of activity, I began to appreciate my time more.  I imagine this is what our customers experience when they implement our products onto their production lines.

In the engineering department at EXAIR we frequently deal with applications facing downtime.  Sometimes the loss of production is due to static or heat, but we have full product lines to handle these concerns.  Through the use of our intelligent compressed air products, we take pride in returning our clients to their full production capacity.  If you’re experiencing a productivity loss and would like to learn more about using our products, please contact me.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
leeevans@exair.com
@exair_le

A Good Sharpening

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

I’m going camping this weekend. This could be the start of any Russ Bowman Blog, it’s true, but this one’s different. See, for the past six years, my best friend Andrew and I have gone camping with our sons on Father’s Day weekend. We jokingly call it our Mother’s Day present to our wives, but it’s really all about a bit of wisdom that we found in the writings of one of Israel’s ancient kings, Solomon, who said: “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” He and I practice this principle with each other, and hope that we’re imparting it to the young men in our charge as well.

Now, these outings are notoriously low impact – we’re ardent connoisseurs of State Park Campgrounds. The highest adventure we encounter is ignoring the “No Wading or Swimming” signs at the Lower Falls at Hocking Hills, chasing the raccoons away from our coolers at Paint Creek, or racing down the giant inflatable water slide at Maumee Bay.

Occasionally, we’ve been known to visit local tourist attractions as well, like the Creation Museum, when we camped at nearby Big Bone Lick. This year, we’re going to East Fork State Park, which is just outside of Cincinnati. We thought about a day trip to King’s Island, or taking in a Reds game (Saturday’s promotion is a free Mohawk hat), but in the end, we decided to “just go camping.” Nice and easy: regardless of weather, wildlife, or whatever, it’s a simple, reliable plan to achieve our goal of refreshing and invigorating ourselves and each other. I’ve got enough silly hats anyway.

EXAIR has posted an FAQ in our Knowledge Base regarding the comparison of compressed air products to those that rely on blower systems, and the analogies to this weekend just started writing themselves:

*Lower purchase costs: A Blower Air Knife can cost over ten times the purchase price of a similar-sized Super Air Knife. Why would we pay to go to an amusement park when the lake is within bicycling range of our reasonably priced campsite?
*Very little, if any, maintenance: Blower bearings need lubrication, and sooner or later, they’re still going to fail. Inlet filters clog and need replacement on a regular basis. With precious few exceptions (the Reversible Drum Vac’s Overflow Preventer Float comes to mind), EXAIR products have no moving parts, and, when supplied with clean, dry air, will run indefinitely…no special attention required. I wish I could say the same for my nine-year old…
*Lower noise levels, well below OSHA requirements: There’s no way around it: blowers make noise. Our products are specifically engineered to operate below OSHA thresholds for occupational sound level exposure. I’m actually going to take the high road here and not comment on the noise level associated with taking the boys camping. Never was a fan of shooting fish in a barrel.
*Infinitely variable force and flow rates: With a blower, you’re locked in to operation at/near it’s output capacity. Sure, you can throttle it down, but it still consumes same amount of energy, and let’s not forget about those bearing replacements (constant throttling puts this in the “sooner” rather than the “later” column). Conversely, when you regulate the air pressure supplied to an EXAIR product, you actually ARE consuming less energy, in the form of less compressed air produced by your compressor. By not locking ourselves into any specific plans this weekend, we’re, in essence, planning for the “infinitely variable” to happen. And I can’t wait to see what that is.
*Simple, compact installation: EXAIR products, unlike blower-fed units, don’t require cumbersome ductwork or noise containment cabinets. “Just camping” requires a tent, a sleeping bag, and a cooler for our food. The most elaborate that we get is the use of bite-size peanut butter cups for our S’mores. And yes, they’re spectacular.

Even if we just use plain old chocolate bars – and we may – I’ll be sharpened, come Monday. Count on that. I am.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
(513)671-3322 local
(800)923-9247 toll free
(513)671-3363 fax
Web: http://www.exair.com
Blog: http://blog.exair.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/exair_rb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair

Flag Day

Published on by Leave a comment

Today, June 14th is Flag Day. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777. The United States flag has undergone 28 iterations. The 13 stripes, which represent the 13 original colonies, have not changed. The number of stars is what changed as states were added to the Union.

A flag day is a flag-related holiday—either a day designated for flying a certain flag (such as a national flag), or a day set aside to celebrate a historical event such as a nation’s adoption of its flag. Thirty five countries around the world observe a flag day.

The American flag to me represents the fortitude and resilience of its citizens who have come here from the four corners of the earth with only the promise of an opportunity. Anyone with a dream and the willingness to work hard and stick to it can succeed. EXAIR’s founder had a dream, the fortitude, and the willingness to see it to fruition. He left a good paying job to start his own company. It came with much sacrifice. The family budget became so tight that they could not afford any frills like a newspaper. He did not ask for any handouts, bailouts, or other such nonsense that we see going on today. He represented the very fiber and grit that made America great.

So as I celebrate Flag Day, it is with a sense of pride as well as concern. I am proud of America’s exceptional individual independence and concerned for its future. As a society we have become less self sufficient and more willing to let others do for us. That is not what has made America great; but what was the downfall of Ancient Rome.

So when you raise your eyes up to the flag at the next sporting event, think of what it represents – free people willing to be all that they can, producing goods and services for the benefit of all.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer

Phone (513) 671-3322
Fax   (513) 671-3363
Web: www.exair.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/exair_jp
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair

Can I Use a Vortex Tube and an Air Knife Together?

Published on by Neal Raker2 Comments

This concept does seem a really cool idea. Taking the cold output flow from a Vortex Tube and pumping it into an Air Knife to get the advantage of the Air Knife to amplify the cold air volume. That would be really cool if that were the way it actually worked. The idea that you can take two really interesting products and combine them together like this has intrigued many would be problem solvers who have called or e-mailed us about the idea.

The problem is that the idea does not work and I would like to explain why.

There are two issues that you have working against the idea:

1. The Vortex Tube is a device that works on a pressure differential between its inlet and both outlets (hot and cold). The more extreme the pressure differential, the more effective it is at producing cold air. For example, when 100 PSIG is measured at the inlet and there are zero restrictions to hot and cold flows. This provides for a very strong 7.8:1 ratio of pressure differential across the Vortex Tube. And so, when you place a restriction to that cold end flow (an Air Knife in this example), you raise the pressure at the cold air outlet. When you raise the outlet pressure, the pressure ratio lessens to a point when 20 PSIG is reached at the outlet, the Vortex Tube function is rendered useless for practical purpose. Given the fact that our Super Air Knife only really begins to move a large volume of air at 20 PSIG, you have a mis-match of useful pressures from Vortex Tube outlet to Air Knife inlet.

2. Let us imagine for a moment that you could produce a reasonable cold compressed air flow and feed it into an Air Knife. The manner in which our compressed air operated Air Knives work is that they have a primary flow of compressed air, 1 part. That 1 part pulls in 30 to 40 parts of ambient air from around the immediate area of the Air Knife body. What ends up happening is with an amplification ratio of even 30:1, the output flow becomes highly diluted with the temperature of the secondary, ambient air becoming the majority of the overall output flow temperature. So, you have just made a whole lot of effort to pipe cold air to an Air Knife that ends up producing only a negligible effect in terms of temperature drop.

Perhaps some day we will be able to work around this little problem of back pressures and air entrainment so the two devices could actually be used together. But until then, it is only a fantasy.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com