Month: October 2011

Coming Soon

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

Yesterday I flipped the calendar onto October, a few days late I know, and it made me remember the quickly approaching holiday season.  I remember that in grade school I loved October because it meant the holidays were getting close and with them came class parties at school, days off in observance of national holidays, and an ever-present possibility of departure from the regularly scheduled activities.

As I’ve grown older, I still get equally excited, but for different reasons.  This year my excitement is brewing in anticipation of a light display at my house this winter.  It’s early to think about, but my plan is to have my lighting routed through a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) to control time delay and sequence, so I need to be “on the ball” about everything.

I don’t plan to go overboard and have something like the video below, but I want to have something fun and different.

As I approached this project I remembered the programming I learned while taking a course dedicated to PLC integration for manufacturing processes and so far, everything has pieced together pretty easily.  Right now, I plan to use an Allen Bradley SLC 500, a model with which I am fairly familiar.

The majority of our time in the engineering department at EXAIR is directed towards more mechanical disciplines of engineering so I might need to dust off a book or two to make sure I get all the connections and program sequence correct.

Something that has stuck out to me in this process was the overwhelming amount of information available for products on the internet.  Not only is there the manufacturer website and a trove of information on reseller sites, but there are threads and forums with detailed information from enthusiasts and end users.

This abundance of information, much of which was conflicting at times, led me to appreciate the ease with which our resellers and end users can contact the engineering staff at EXAIR.  A quick call or email can circumvent hours of frustration and confusion.  Anyone who uses our product can speak directly to the people who make it, and that’s priceless.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
leeevans@exair.com
@exair_le

Goals

Published on by Russ Bowman1 Comment

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a Court of Honor hosted by my oldest son’s Boy Scout Troop. After a darn fine pot-luck dinner, came the ceremonies. A fringe benefit of being involved with a true boy led Scout Troop is that none of the adult leaders are given to long speeches, so most of the ceremony-type stuff was exactly what it should have been: recognition of the Scouts’ accomplishments.

Including my son, I know four of the boys in the Troop very well – I was their Cub Scout Den Leader. I was almost as proud of the other three as I was of my son when they were awarded the Merit Badges they’ve earned thus far, and their “Tenderfoot” rank. “Tenderfoot” is the first official rank earned by a Boy Scout. It’s the initial step towards Eagle Scout, the much sought after highest rank in Boy Scouts. Ask any Tenderfoot, and they’ll tell you this is their goal.

I was looking through my son’s Boy Scout Handbook later that night, to see what accomplishments were necessary for the various ranks that lay ahead of him, and I was a little surprised to see items already checked off on his 2nd Class, 1st Class, and Life Scout requirements pages. As I read closer, I saw that some of these items have to be done during the immediately preceding rank, but others can be completed at any time.

This made me think about goals I’ve set – and need to set – in my life. Some are short-term, like getting the garage cleaned. Some are intermediate-term, like a District-wide Scout Achievement Weekend that a couple of my crazy Scout Leader friends and I came up with the idea for recently. Some are long-term, like planning my finances to ensure my sons have no reason not to go to college. Some are never-ending (and I mean that in a really good way, by the way), like crafting the best love story ever with my lovely bride, with whom I just celebrated 15 years of marriage. Happy Anniversary, Regina…here’s to the next fifteen, and the fifteen after that.

So, my son is working on his short-term goal of making 2nd Class. But, at the same time, he’s completing requirements for 1st Class, Star, Life, and Eagle. There’s a lesson to be learned here about our goals: Short-term; long-term; in-between and ongoing…they’re all important, and deserving of our time. And it’s OK – maybe even mandatory – that we work toward them simultaneously.

What are your goals? Are you working towards completion of the short-termers, while making progress on the long-termers? What are committed to for the long haul?  Whatever they are, make them count!

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

Air Knife Assist in Labeling Application

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

A customer recently applied our 3″ Super Air Knife model 110003 to their labeling process. The customer was tasked with applying and identification label onto the top and side of a moving case of product. The top part of the application was fairly simple with a rod fitted with an application pad that came down for a split second to “stamp” the label into position. The second part of the application, folding the rest of the label down over the trailing edge of the case, proved to be a little more challenging.

The customer came up with the idea to have an air knife apply a well-timed blast of air to the back of the case at an angle to essentially push the rest of the label down onto the case. Here is a video of the application.

Our Air Knives and Air Nozzles have been used in many, similar, labeling applications in the past. They have also been used in non-contact sorting and other applications where some physical force needed to be applied to a moving target going by on a conveyor.  If you have a similar need, feel free to contact us. We would be glad to go over your application and share with you our ideas of which kind of solution might work best, bearing in mind what we have already done as shown above.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

So You Think You Have an Unsual Application

Published on by Leave a comment

I love it when I get a call prefaced with the statement “I’ve got an unusual application that your products probably were not designed for”. It’s not like I hadn’t heard that before and in the end it was just a matter of thinking outside the box.

This one customer, who builds ink jet printers, needed to control the viscosity of his ink.Variations in ambient temperatures was changing the viscosity of the ink requiring a line shutdown and recalibration of the marking system. He came across our website and was interested in our Vortex Tubes . His idea was to blow cold air on to the spraying tips.

I liked his idea but not his method of application. As the viscosity changed he would have to change the amount of cooling, putting him back to square one of having to recalibrate with changing conditions. I asked him what was the ideal temperature for the ink. He said 60F. I suggested that he store the ink pots in a controlled environment for however long it takes for the entire pot to normalize. Then when a fresh pot of ink was needed, it could be taken out to the line and put into a chamber cooled by one our Vortex Cabinet coolers. The cooler would maintain a consistent temperature inside the box and thus a constant viscosity.

It was more work than he had anticipated but he was willing to try a test. It worked flawlessly. He is retrofitting his machines in the field and adding our coolers to all new machines being built.

If you have an application that you would like a different perspective feel welcomed to call one of our application engineers 1-800-903-9247.

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