Month: May 2013

Vacuum Chips from Blind Holes

Published on by 2 Comments

An engine manufacturing plant had an issue with removing shavings from a blind hole to be threaded. The machining of the engine block is done on a transfer machine and is unmanned from station to station. Shavings in the drilled holes would interfere with the bottoming forming taps, causing them to break. When a tap breaks, sensors shut the entire line down.

Capture

The initial concept was to use an EXAIR Deep Hole Vac U Gun where compressed air is blown down into the hole with a small compressed air tube. The savings are captured by a soft vinyl tube under vacuum generated by the gun. This worked quite well but would require an operator positioned at that station. The customer wanted to keep the operation unmanned.

GM Romulus BO-Vacuum System HP Chip-VacThey added another station in the transfer line and installed an EXAIR 5 gallon Chip Vac with the end of its hose modified to replicate the Deep Hole Vac U Gun. They moved the modified hose end with a robot from hole to hole. This eliminated tap breakage, line shutdown, and increased uptime by 10%. 

There are a lot of innovative  ways that EXAIR products can be used.

Give our application engineers a call. 1-800-903-9247.  They would be happy to assist you.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
Phone (513) 671-3322
Fax (513) 671-3363
Web: http://www.exair.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/exair_jp
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair

http://www.exair.com/28/dhvg.htm

EXAIR Now Has A Softball Team…. Again

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

It’s that time of the year, to play ball.   EXAIR now has a recreational softball team that is going to be playing on Thursday nights here in Cincinnati.  The team is going to be composed of guys from our production team, engineering department, marketing department, and even our President.

As of right now we are still gathering our equipment up and it seems like it is going to turn out to be a combination of The Sandlot, along with The Bad News Bears. (Not the Billy Bob Thorton version.)  The interesting part of the process so far is that we have already started to pull together and help each other out.  Even people who aren’t going to be playing have volunteered to watch us for comedic relief or donate some old equipment to the cause.

So other than being a group of guys that haven’t played sports in a handful of years we have one thing going for us and that is the support from EXAIR.   It really goes to show you what kind company EXAIR is.  We’ll not only help you find what you need, let you try the unit out for 30 days, then stand behind it for 5 years against manufacturer’s defect.  We will also be here to support troubleshooting and any other help you may need with the product by phone, e-mail, live chat or even fax.

If you have a question on any of our products, don’t hesitate to call.   Also, if you are in Cincinnati and want to watch some live entertainment, let us know and we’ll get you the team schedule.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

The Door Is Always Open

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

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One of the avenues we offer for our customers to contact us, is by phone.  It almost seems old fashioned considering the number of emails and online IM conversations (chats) we have on a daily basis.  But, its tried and true.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of working with end users of our product in Texas.  They’ve purchased countless items from us over the years and due to an on-site accident needed a replacement item for one of our Safety Air Guns.  We have several styles with various models in each offering, so I felt some doubt we were at exactly the right place.

To erase the doubt and confirm the necessary part to the end user, I took a few photos of the spares and sent them over.  It turns out we were right on the money, but having visual confirmation gave the extra security needed to order without hesitation.  And, of course, we created another again-satisfied customer.

If you have an application or EXAIR related question, the door is always open.

Lee Evans

Application Engineer

LeeEvans@EXAIR.com

@EXAIR_LE

Choices, Choices

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

This past Sunday was my birthday. I had planned on teaching my 13-year-old son some basics of pitching…but it rained, so instead, he got a lesson in the basics of plumbing, since the toilet in his bathroom needed a new wax ring installed. It actually wasn’t too bad, since I learned something too: I’ve replaced a few toilet seals in my time, but I never knew how easy it was when help was available, especially from a strapping, athletic teenager who’s capable of lifting his half of that awkward, ceramic hulk. When we go to tile that bathroom floor (don’t tell him yet; it’s a surprise…maybe for HIS birthday), this is one task I don’t dread all that much anymore.

You’re probably thinking of a thousand better ways to spend a birthday, and, a thousand times, you would be right. It wasn’t all bad, though: right before we got into the plumbing project, we had lunch with some of our best friends. Since it was my birthday, I got to choose where we went. After making several fast-food suggestions that I KNEW would be unacceptable to my wife, I picked one of her favorite steak joints, and all was well. Medium well, actually…

Speaking of smart decisions, I had the pleasure of helping a new customer with product selection for a cooling application yesterday. There are many, many situations where an EXAIR product can be used for cooling, but it all comes down to two considerations. Is it better to use:

*A small-to-moderate flow of very cold air (like a Vortex Tube), or
*A high volume flow of ambient temperature air?

In this case, they needed to keep a sensitive component in a vision inspection system relatively cool in a very high temperature environment. For that kind of mass heat removal, the obvious answer was an Air Amplifier:  although a Vortex Tube can produce very cold temperatures, when the temperature of the machinery is more than a few hundred degrees, the relative “cool” of room temperature air will do just fine, especially if you can provide a LOT of it.  What (I hope) sells the customer on it is a video we recently became aware of, showing our Adjustable Air Amplifiers being used to cool the exhaust during the testing of the 2014 Corvette’s 450HP V8 engine:

If you have an application requiring a cooling flow of air and aren’t sure which way to go, give me a call. If the Corvette engine video doesn’t convince you, we can even resort to quantitative analysis of your heat load, which is almost as fun. Almost…

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