Month: February 2012

Out With the Old and In With the New

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Oh really!!  Being in my senior years I’ve been around long enough to see things come full circle. What is being touted today as new is merely something recycled from the past with a new coat of paint.  I have a closet full of ties: wide ones, thin ones, stripped ones, paisley prints, stripes, and colors of all sorts. I don’t throw them away because over time they come back into style.

When we were kids, Mom reused jelly jars for juice glasses. Grandma recycled flour sacks into pillow cases. Anything headed for the dump Dad stripped of its nuts and bolts and saved them in recycled baby food jars. As we outgrew our clothes, we recycled them down to our smaller siblings.

Then there came the era of “planned obsolescence“.  The idea was not to make products designed to last, but they should be made cheaply and simply discarded and replaced. This would create jobs and stimulate a robust economy. So we became a wasteful, consuming, throwaway society.

Today we have come full circle. Catch phrases such as sustainability, recycle, and conserve are the rage. Oh really! That’s what we used to do. So is this really new or simply recycled from the past with a new coat of paint?

EXAIR does not subscribe to planned obsolescence. For 27 years we have built our products to last and back it up with a 5 year built to last warranty. Nozzles, jets, and air knives have been around forever. So their basic concept is not new. What is new is what EXAIR has done to design them to conserve compressed air, operate at low sound levels, and be compliant to OSHA directives without sacrificing performance.

If you need help in retrofitting your inefficient nozzles or have an application that requires the use of compressed air call one of our application engineers at 1-800-903-9247

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com

Yet another home use for a few EXAIR products

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

I feel as though my wife thinks I am the king of hobbies.  I know I have blogged before about motorcycles and several other activities that I enjoy.  So far I have found a use for an E-Vac to bleed the brakes on my Suzuki.  Now I have had my eyes opened to the art of wood working.

You see my brother in-law makes a living through custom wood working.  One day, he showed me a quick easy project – a pen.  That’s right, a plain old writing utensil.   So I followed his instructions and about an hour and a half later I had a pen that I had made all on my own. (The pencil shown below was just turned last night)

Flash forward several months and I am now making pens and pencils in my basement.  After watching the local sites and papers for cheap equipment I now have a wood lathe and have moved some of my metal working equipment to make room for wood working equipment.  The funny thing is I have still found several uses for EXAIR products.

The first is on my drill press, a very common application for us in industrial environments.  This would be the perfect spot for a Mini Spot Cooler.  I have a compressor that is just large enough to run it at full capacity and so when I am drilling through a 3 – 4″ long blank I don’t get the burning wood smell or melting acrylic.  It won’t even scream like a banshee when the bit gets in full depth of cut. (Below the Mini Spot Cooler is used to cool an abrasive cut off wheel.)

This isn’t the only place an EXAIR product can be used.   I could also use the Mini Spot Cooler or a Cold Gun on the lathe when turning acrylic blanks to keep the tool and cutting point cool.  I could even use a Mini Chip Vac to  vacuum the chips from the lathe as they are being made.  Not to mention that the 0.1 micron filter is fine enough to catch the sanding dust made when finishing the pens.

So whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional, EXAIR will have a product that will fit your needs or help make your work a little easier, safer, and quieter.  So feel free to give us a call and talk to an Application Engineer to discuss your application.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF 

Year One

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

Yesterday, Ivan Banks handed me a form to fill out; my self-evaluation of the past year’s performance.  Eager to analyze and attempt to quantify, as any engineer must always be, I take to this task with enthusiasm – and with a bit of surprise that I’ve been on the team for a year now.  They say time flies when you’re having fun, and I guess it flies when you’re surrounded by binders of data sheets and guys huddled over gear definitions in old college textbooks (just for fun) too.

It’s been a great year with great people and great products.  About a month ago I worked through a project with a process control engineer in need of a pneumatic conveyor for bulk material within his plant.  We went through the critical aspects of the application like bulk density, conveying distance and height, material size, end use, etc.  After reviewing the details, we selected the appropriate Line Vac and the end-user sent in a P.O.

This situation happens frequently, it is the purpose of our application engineering department to assist end users and OEM’s with specific engineering and design needs.  What also seems to happen frequently is that I receive follow-up calls from our clients who are so pleased with our product they wanted to call and tell us about it.  Often times they follow this up with, “I want to buy five more for my other lines/facilities”.

Exchanges like this are just another way I know I made an excellent decision coming aboard at EXAIR.

I’ve always felt that one of the best decisions I ever made in my life was to attend a local magnet school for junior high and high school (Walnut Hills).  I have so many memories about the place that I almost can’t focus on one.  I just think back, and smile.

I just read an article that the gymnasium at my high school is set to be retired. After an historic past, it appears it is time to do away with the old and move on to the new.

In a similar vein, we’ve moved past catalog 24 and on to catalog 25 at EXAIR.  Click here for your copy.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
LeeEvans@exair.com
@EXAIR_LE

It Looked Good On Paper

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

“It looked good on paper…” – this has been the Call to Retreat for many a good-intentioned project, and it’s been on my mind as I prepare for a little construction undertaking this weekend. A few of my fellow Cub Scout leaders and I are going to let our 9 & 10 year-old Scouts build a bridge. See, when we have our Blue and Gold Banquet in a few weeks, the 10 year old Webelos II Scouts will be “crossing over” to Boy Scouts, and the common ceremonial prop we use to do that is a small bridge – their Cub Scout leaders remove the blue loops from their epaulettes before they go across, and their new Boy Scout leaders put the green loops on when they get to the other side. It’s been almost a year since my oldest crossed the bridge, and my pride over that still hasn’t subsided enough to keep me from mentioning it again!

Anyway, we drew up a nice little sketch of this nice little bridge, we’ve dug out our saws and hammers, all of our cordless drills’ batteries are on their chargers, and our materials list is ready for the hardware store, so we’re as prepared as we’re going to get. Until, of course, we get started, and realize what we forgot. We actually did plan for this contingency, though…Mr. Rob and I are the “Second Trip To The Hardware Store” team.

Every once in a while, though, it’s good to have a reminder that there are certain immutable physical principles that bear out from the drawing board to the plant floor. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of assisting a customer with a Super Air Knife system installation. Here’s how it went:

They had recently purchased (2) 54” Super Air Knives, and had installed them to blow debris from sheets of plywood. This should be a slam-dunk: you simply can’t find a more “textbook” application for a Super Air Knife. Unfortunately, the air flow rate wasn’t sufficient to produce good results, so I asked about the compressed air supply. They had 60 feet of ¾” pipe supplying these two units from their 80 PSIG air header, but were getting only 30 PSIG at the inlet to the Super Air Knives. Now, I knew instantly from looking at the Super Air Knife Installation Manual (registration required for access) that this was undersized, since the recommended size for that length of piping, and that amount of Air Knife, would be 1-1/4”. When I calculated the compressed air pipe pressure drop I used these parameters: a flow rate of 313 SCFM (total flow rate of two 54” Super Air Knifes at 80 PSIG supply pressure), 60 ft of ¾” pipe (0.82” ID), and 80 PSIG initial pressure. The results were a pressure drop of 50.45 psi, which is pretty darn close to their 80 PSIG header pressure, minus the 30 PSIG they were seeing at the Air Knives!

I guess the moral to this story – from my perspective, anyway – is that “it looks good on paper” is a harbinger of doom if a trip to the hardware store is involved. When it comes to applying the laws of physics, it comes down to the accuracy of your calculations. As we’re reminded in this  video, the laws of physics are absolute, and, as the engineer in the video says, “if you make physics mad, physics will hurt you!”

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
(513)671-3322 local
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(513)671-3363 fax
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