Month: December 2011

Super Ion Air Knife Cleans Acrylic Light Covers

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

Here is a good old-fashioned application for your review. We have a customer who is making acrylic light covers which look like this;

The light covers travel with the inside of the cover facing the floor, like the covers on the left of the image above. They are placed on a roller conveyor in that position after a last cutting operation. The cutting operation leaves a lot of dust and debris on the inside surface and hung up in the under cut flange. When they are positioned to ride down the conveyor it allows much of the debris to fall out but they still needed to remove more dust and particles prior to the final inspection, cleaning and packaging.

With the light covers positioned in the image below, we outfitted the customer with a 36″ Super Ion Air Knife which will blow up into the inside cavity of the light cover.

The Ionized air eliminated any static which may have been present and released the difficult to reach debris and dust, causing it to fall out of the light cover. The customer has been able to speed up production time due to a shorter final cleaning operation. The part quality was improved by providing a cleaner product and package.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

Eliminate the Paradox

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

I recently discovered that you can purchase caffeinated marshmallows branded identically to the Stay Puft marshmallow man in Ghostbusters.  Who knew??

In the current marketplace there seems to be one of everything for everyone. There are so many products to choose from in any market that instead of making a decision and feeling good about it, we can become overwhelmed and paralyzed by the number of possible choices.  And, conversely to what you would expect, the large number of choices leads to less satisfaction when a choice is actually made.  Quite the paradox.  There are so many possibilities that second guessing the purchase is almost guaranteed if you aren’t an expert in the particular field.

Fortunately, when the decision is manufacturing or production related, the engineering department at EXAIR has it covered.  We dedicate ourselves to leading our industry through knowledge of the marketplace, continual product expansion and innovation, technical training, and experience.  We’re pleased to have won a new award and stand poised to possibly usher in a few more.  (See them here and here.)

Industrial manufacturing is the pulse of our application engineers.  Need a lifeline?  Give us a call – we’ll help you make the right choice without second guessing.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
leeevans@exair.com
@EXAIR_LE

Home For the Holidays

Published on by Russ Bowman1 Comment

My friend and neighbor Alan is in the Army. His unit’s deployment to Iraq ended early, so he’s home with his family for the holidays, and I don’t think I could be happier unless I was one of them. I started thinking about how nice it would be if everyone got to be home for Christmas, and that got me thinking about a Christmas that I spent 500 miles away and 400 feet below home, during alert patrol on a Trident submarine.

Any Supply Officer worth his salt will make sure there’s prime rib and all the fixings for Christmas dinner underway. Someone always brought a few tapes or CD’s full of Christmas music. And despite being where we were (which was classified information, you landlubber), there wasn’t a finer group of people to be around than Blue Crew on the USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735) from 1987-1991.

Christmas morning came, and the Captain called all hands to the Crew’s Mess. The Chief of the Boat was waiting for us, wearing a Santa hat and a set of canary yellow radiological anti-contamination coveralls. Beside him were several large gunnysacks. He wished us all a Merry Christmas, and announced that, before we got underway, the Wives’ Club had given him presents to distribute. As he finished up his list of all the married guys who had gotten a nice surprise from home, he revealed a little surprise for the bachelors among us too…turns out, that wonderful group of ladies had taken turns picking our names, and had sent us presents too. When I opened mine (a key chain with a ridiculously oversized alligator head bottle opener from Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, FL), I saw that it was from my friend Joni. I thought it was a remarkable stroke of kismet that she would have gotten my name…she was one of the few crew members’ wives’ that I knew, and I always thought the world of her. I guess the feeling was mutual, because the card she enclosed said that she had sought out who had pulled my name, and convinced them to trade with her.  As the father of two boys, I’m qualified to judge what makes a magical Christmas, and that one still makes the grade.

It would sure be nice if everyone got to be home for Christmas. But if you can’t, my wish for you this season is that you can participate in the hope that this holiday is all about – wherever you may be. Oh, and Joni, my wish for you is always the same: that ALL your Christmases be as merry as you made mine in 1990.

Happy Holidays,
Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
russbowman@exair.com
@EXAIR_RB