As I was cleaning my garage this weekend (yes, that’s what I do with long weekends), I found a bottle of vinegar, buried in the clutter on my workbench. See, a while back, I had needed to clean the streaks from some Plexiglas sheets, and discovered we were out of glass cleaner when I remembered reading something about using vinegar to clean glass. Despite the fact that I HATE the smell of vinegar, I decided to give it a try, and it worked. I also hate to put stuff back where it belongs, so it stayed on my workbench through the winter, but that’s another story.
Vinegar is pretty versatile. In fact, there’s a website that claims to have “1,001 Uses For White Distilled Vinegar” (I didn’t count), but it’s interesting that, before they list the “Cooking” applications, they go through: gardening (it’s a weed killer), cleaning (it also kills mold and bacteria), laundry (it’s a stain remover), health (you can use it to soothe a sunburn…if you can put up with the smell), automotive (it’s great for cleaning your wiper blades), and even pets: you can supposedly use it to keep cats out of the sandbox, or off the furniture. Note that this will probably work for me as well…did I mention I HATE the smell of vinegar?
You know what else is pretty versatile? EXAIR’s Air Amplifiers. I was perusing our Application Database (registration required) recently, and it seems we have an amazingly diverse assortment of successful uses for the Air Amplifier. The top three, in order, were:
#1: Cooling. The enormous amount of air entrained (up to 25 SCFM for every SCFM of compressed air consumed) makes the Super Air Amplifier an efficient choice to provide a large flow of cooling air for high heat removal.
#2: Blow-off/drying. They’re a popular and effective fit here due to the high velocity air flow they produce.
#3: Ventilation/exhaust. Again, air entrainment is the key: Our 8” Super Air Amplifier can pull in over 2,800 SCFM. For confined space ventilation, this means you can provide for 10 air exchanges per hour*, in a space up to 16,800 cubic feet (over 120,000 gallons).
*That’s from a typical Confined Space Entry procedure; please check with your Health & Safety folks for your own specific requirements.
Those three categories accounted for over half of our documented applications. Among the others:
- A ¾” Super Air Amplifier was used as a “pick and place” device…this is normally a job for an E-Vac, but this customer was moving small pieces of fiber, about the size and consistency of a coffee filter, and we found the Super Air Amplifier was the only thing we had that would pick them up one at a time.
- A 4” unit is being used to evenly distribute flavoring onto dog food.
- Some are just plain fun. They’ve been used to add a wind effect to a dance floor. If you feel a sudden rush of wind blowing through a haunted house, it might be an Air Amplifier. The most amusing application has to be Roaring Banana Breath.
If you want to know more about Air Amplifiers, or if you think you have an application we haven’t heard of yet, please give us a call.
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/
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