…and I feel fine.
Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
russbowman@exair.com
@EXAIR_RB
Month: December 2011
Triboelectric Effect: Big Name For a Simple Concept
Triboelectric effect is simply a large word that means when two materials of a certain nature come into direct contact with one another, they will become electrically charged. The “certain nature” that I mentioned above usually means materials that are electrically non-conductive. Wool, glass and PVC plastic would be three very good examples.
This is where things begin to not make much sense. Think about it, materials that are electrically non-conductive generate an electric charge when they are brought into close contact with one another. Notice I didn’t say anything about friction or rubbing action to cause the electric charge generation. The materials simply have to come together for this to happen. Friction or rubbing can be a component, but is not necessary.
It isn’t until you go to separate these materials in an application where you really begin to see the problem. This was the case for a customer who printed onto PVC boards. The board faces were covered with a protective film to protect against damage. Everything was going OK in the application until the film was peeled off the PVC board. The simple action of peeling off that protective film generated huge static charges due to the imbalance of positive and negative charges on each material surface. Again, note that there was no vibration, rubbing or friction of any kind.
Another good example of this kind of effect is when a material such as mylar is fed into a machine from a master roll. The action of the top layer of mylar separating from the roll will, again, produce a rather large static electricity imbalance.
EXAIR makes static eliminators and we can certainly help you with these static issues. I wanted to write an article to help people where to look within their application and why they would want to look in such places as it may not always be obvious what exactly is causing the static electricity to generate. If you know where the problem resides, you can then apply our static eliminating solutions more effectively.
Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com
Air Wipers – Nozzles Increase Production, Decrease Maintenance
I had a company that extrudes plastic decking contact me with a problem they were having. To remove the sheen and impart a textured surface, they spray on a chemical wash. To remove the excess, they were using mechanical wipers. The problem with the wipers is that they wore out too fast, left streaks, and could not get into grooves.
EXAIR suggested using our 2″ wide super air nozzle mounted on a stay set hose for easy adjustment. In the video you can see the nozzle in the lower right corner. As it blows air into the side groove of the part, you can see it easily cleans the groove as it sprays the liquid to the left. With no contact on the product the only maintenance is an occasional wiping of the nozzle to remove over spray.
Not only were they able to eliminate replacing wipers, they were able to speed up the process to “lightning fast” as the customer put it.
If you would like assistance with your application, give our engineers a call at 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
The Case of the Missing Nozzle
I recently discussed Safety Air Guns with a customer who was the head of safety in his facility. The issue he was having was all of the operators had been taking the regulators off his traditional style air guns to get the cleaning of their parts done. When he asked them the reasoning, they would say there was no way they could get the debris removed when they are restricted to 30 PSIG. They were simply not able to get the job done because they didn’t have a good distribution of air or enough force to get the job done.
I asked him what style gun he was using and he told me it was a cheap gun he got from his industrial supplier. He gave me a picture of the gun below.
As you can see the gun has an extension on it which is simply an open pipe. Because it is just a section of pipe and can be dead ended, they had to regulate the gun to lower than 30 PSIG inlet pressure to meet OSHA standards or face a fine.
The application was to simply remove metal chips from holes and cavities after a machining process. They need the extension to reach around the extents of the part and the thinner pipe to get into some of the blind holes. Our Precision Safety Air Gun was an ideal replacement for this gun. The extension was nearly the same and because our Engineered Nano Super Air Nozzle is at the tip it can not be dead ended. This means their operators can run full line pressure and still not be able to dead end the gun.
The other part to the equation is because they were using our Engineered Solution, they were also able to save compressed air. The gun they were using would consume 19.3 SCFM @ 80 PSIG. Our Precision Safety Air Gun is going to consume 8.3 SCFM @ 80 PSIG. This means the customer will save $0.17 per hour of use on the guns. Multiply that by the 25 guns they have in house means they will be saving $4.25 per hour of use for their parts cleaning operations.
If you have any hand held blow gun or lance operations in your facility that are using non engineered solutions, feel free to contact us and we’ll help you select the right Safety Air Gun along with assistance to calculate how much air and money you’ll be able to save by implementing the engineered solution.
Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF