Month: May 2013

Efforts And Hard Work Coming To Fruition

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

This past weekend I got to check one of the many projects off my “Honey-Do” list from my wife.  I finally got the plants we had started from seeds several months ago into the ground in the backyard in a freshly made garden.  After running errands for most of the day on Saturday and Sunday, picking up supplies for other projects, I had some time to start outlining this garden.

20130526_211133

I thought it was going to be a small garden, maybe 4′ x 4′.   It turned out to be a 6′ x 12′ garden that could stand to be a little bigger.  I did have the help of a 10″ wide tiller that lost the muffler before the first stripe was done.   It was by no means an easy task but I finally got the entire area tilled and laid out the plants with the help of my father, my wife planted them.

20130527_210542

Now we have to ensure the weeds are kept, the plants are watered, and the animals are kept out.  With any luck, we will get to see the hard work turn into something the whole family can enjoy, mainly vegetables.

Here at EXAIR we are constantly working hard  to develop new products and processes to help you, our customer, save time, effort, money, and most importantly compressed air.  If we didn’t put in the hard work to get our messages out and make sure that every product performs how we say it will then we wouldn’t be here.   The company would dry up like a garden that is untended.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Line Vac Back Pressure

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

Line Vac Back Pressure

The photo above was received from an end user curious as to the back pressure limitations of a Line Vac.  They have numerous EXAIR Line Vacs in place and were curious how the air operated conveyor would fare when forced to supply product into a slightly pressurized vessel.  The application proposal and setup highlighted two great opportunities to educate our client about the product.

The first was that the Line Vac is designed to vent to ambient conditions – we never recommend installing a Line Vac against an opposing pressure.  In this case, back pressure was generated by adjusting a ball valve at the point where air vented to atmospheric conditions.  The second opportunity to educate about the Line Vac in this setup was in regards to the outlet line size.  The exhaust piping of a Line Vac should never be sized smaller than the Line Vac, and in this case the piping at the exhaust end of the Line Vac was undersized by 0.5”, creating a back pressure of its own.

Unfortunately, the pressure present in the area which to the Line Vac would be routed was too great for an EXAIR solution.  Fortunately, through a discussion with our Application Engineering department, the end user was steered toward a viable solution all while learning a little along the way.

Lee Evans

Application Engineer

LeeEvans@EXAIR.com

@EXAIR_LE

The Solution To Intermittent Compressed Air System Loads

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

I recently had the pleasure of assisting an EXAIR Cold Gun user with an application: the parts that the Cold Guns were supposed to be cooling weren’t always getting as cool as they wanted…they’re thermistors being assembled onto a component, and they need to be below a certain temperature when they test them, so they can make sure they’re set properly. Some were getting to the test station while they were at a temperature above their setpoint, which resulted in a rejection of that part. The user wanted to know what could make the Cold Gun work better at times, and worse at other times.

The Cold Gun Aircoolant System has a Vortex Tube with a preset Cold Fraction (that’s the percentage of air supply that is directed to the cold end), so, assuming a constant compressed air supply pressure and temperature, it’ll produce the same amount of cold air flow, at the same low temperature, continuously. The user told me that they used some pneumatic tools in the area, and that these were supplied off the same header as the Cold Guns. We supposed that, during the tools’ operation (which is largely intermittent, as are the Cold Guns’), that portion of the compressed air system may be experiencing a pressure drop, possibly large enough to affect the Cold Guns’ temperature drop.

This could have resulted in a complicated re-plumbing of the compressed air supply in this area, but they were in luck…they had an unused receiver tank, and were able to install it upstream of the feed to the Cold Guns. This resulted in an undisturbed supply of air at a constant 100psig, regardless of whether, or how many, pneumatic tools were being operated at the same time in this area.

This kind of intermittent pressure drop could just as easily affect an Air Knife used for blow off (causing it to not be able to remove moisture/debris in some spots but not others), a Line Vac’s conveyance rate, an E-Vac’s suction power…and the list goes on…not to mention the reduced performance of the pneumatic tools.

If this situation sounds familiar, give us a call. We can look at your supply and demand conditions, and see if a receiver tank might be the solution. Oh, and if you don’t have one, we do: our Model 9500-60 60 Gallon Receiver Tank is ASME rated, and is ideally sized for a wide range of intermittent demands. Let us know if we can help determine if this is a viable solution for your needs.

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/
Twitter: twitter.com/exair_rb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair

Vortex Tubes Keep Load Cells in Steel Mill Cool

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

ladle car

Our Australian distributor, Compressed Air Australia has a customer in the foundry business that produces large building components. Recently, they ran into a problem with their load cells overheating. Load cells are positioned underneath what is called the ladle car so that the contents of the ladle that rides on top can be weighed.

load cell

The contents of the ladle are obviously very hot and radiate heat in all directions. This can cause the compartments in the floor where the load cells are contained to become very hot as well. This caused errors in readings that were being produced by the load cells. It was determined that some form of cooling was going to be necessary. However, due to very tight configuration of the load cell compartments, choices were limited.

The customer had heard about vortex tubes, made an internet search and found EXAIR Vortex Tubes. With the guidance of our distributor, we were able to determine that a model HT3230 (High Temp. Vortex Tube) connected at each load cell compartment, purging the enclosed space, dropped the temperature from 200°C down to a much cooler 80°C that was requested by the customer.

The customer was able to address their over-heating problem adequately and the load cells are working properly.

Neal Raker, Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com