Month: April 2014

The Patrol Method Still Works

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Something doesn’t feel quite right about this past weekend. A few hundred Boy Scouts gathered along the bank of the East Fork of the Little Miami River from Friday to Sunday for our District’s Spring Camp-O-Ree…and it didn’t rain once. It totally went the wisdom of great American author, philosopher, and truth-teller Dave Barry:

Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds, for the opportunity to rain on a tent.

The beautiful weather, though, was just the icing on the cake of a glorious weekend. We set up a series of team-building/problem-solving exercises for the Scouts to perform. One of these was known as “The Hot Chocolate River” which consists of:

(2) lengths of rope, staked to the ground about 15 feet apart…these are the “banks” of the river.
(5) 2-foot wooden squares…these are the “marshmallows” that the team uses to cross the river.

Here’s the deal: each 8-Scout Patrol attempts to reach the opposite bank by placing the marshmallows in the river. At least one Scout has to be in physical contact with each marshmallow in the river, or the unattended marshmallow is removed from play, and they’re left to cross the river with just four marshmallows. Or three, when they find another way to leave one unattended. And some of them did, with alarming quickness. One Patrol (the one my youngest son belongs to) successfully crossed the river in 1:14 (min:sec). The next fastest was 1:44. Another Patrol lost three marshmallows almost immediately, but were able to get all eight members across in under seven minutes, using only two marshmallows. A couple of Patrols “timed out,” being left with only one or two marshmallows after ten minutes, with members still on the starting bank.

One thing I noticed…from the quickest (did I mention that was my son’s Patrol?) to the slowest, was that their success (or lack thereof) was tied to their teamwork and communication (or lack thereof.) These are key components of “The Patrol Method,” which I wrote about once. Well, twice.

That was a couple of years ago, and the Application Engineering team at EXAIR STILL practices The Patrol Method. It’s indispensable, whether we’re looking for a solution to a challenging application, training a new member of the team, or just getting everyone one the same page…no sense in just one of us learning something if we can ALL learn, right?

How are teamwork and communication contributing to your team’s success?  Something to think about.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
(513)671-3322 local
(800)923-9247 toll free
(513)671-3363 fax
Web: www.exair.com
Twitter: twitter.com/exair_rb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair

Can I Use a Vortex Tube for Heating?

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

VT

I had a customer come to me the other day. He had an application that required him to heat some metal bearings up to 230°F. He wanted to know if he could use a vortex tube to heat them to the desired temperature. Technically speaking, if he had a compressed air source that started at 70°F, he could conceivably heat the bearings up to about 260°F as that is about the maximum temperature of the vortex tube hot air output.

But the question really is, should he be using a vortex tube to heat those bearings? And generally, the only time vortex heating should seriously be considered is if there isn’t any utility to heat any other way, such as with electricity or with fuel of some sort. There are times when those other utilities are simply not available, but compressed air is. Or perhaps there is some reason why the customer does not want to use those other methods such as dealing with noxious fumes produced from burning a fuel.

You might ask, why not sell a vortex tube into just about any application that requires heating. The simple answer is that it truly has to be the right application to make sense from an application goals standpoint and also from the standpoint of whether it is the most effective method of heating a target object.

EXAIR Vortex Tubes, in and of themselves, are a wonderful product. They produce a hot and a cold air flow. The cold air flow volume will be the  majority of those two flows in most cases. So you could say you get more from a vortex tube in terms of energy output when it is used as a cooling device than as one for heating.

What does this explanation mean? In short, vortex tube applications for heating are usually few and far between. At least those which make any sense. A couple of those applications include heating up 5 gallon buckets of grease, paint and other chemicals on an oil rig platform located in cold regions. Another one is to use the hot flow of a vortex tube to keep a mirror in a laser application warm enough that it does not form condensation during use of the laser in a cold environment.

Do you have an application where you think a Vortex Tube might help?  Please e-mail or call one of our Application Engineers to discuss your idea. We would love to hear about your application.

Neal Raker, Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

It’s Always Nice To Find “Good People”

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

lost-wallet (1)This past Friday I got home from work and went to drive somewhere when I realized I couldn’t find my wallet.  This of course induced panic since, like most people, I carry my life in my wallet.   So the search began, as well as the trouble caused by short term memory loss.  After searching through both cars, the motorcycle, all the dirty laundry, and the house, it was not found.   Not only could I not find the wallet but I had no recollection of when the last time I used something from my wallet was.

Saturday was a new day and I went through everything again with no wallet.  Contacted a few of the EXAIR team members and luckily one was in the area of the office so we stopped in to see if it was here.  After he had to wait for me to get here for at least 20 minutes due to some lovely mid-Saturday traffic, we came in and still couldn’t find the wallet.  So I just started watching all of the accounts for my various credit cards, waiting to see the balances change.  There was nothing, zero transactions, so I decided to wait until today when the entire crew is here to see if someone had found it.  The first stop I made after searching my desk again was our Human Resource person, who oddly enough had a grin on his face.   It turns out the cleaning crew had come in on Friday night and found it, so they left a note on the wallet and put it in a locked office so it wouldn’t be bothered.

The entire time my wallet was lost I had little hope that if someone found it, they would do the right thing and return it.  I did have the slight hope it would show up in the mail but was still extremely doubtful.  It all boils down to the fact that everyone I reached out to here at EXAIR was more than willing to help me try to find the wallet and were willing to sacrifice time with their families just to help out a fellow team member.  Those are the only type of people that work with our way of doing things here at EXAIR.  I would consider them all to be “Good People”.

We aren’t just going to treat each other like that, we even treat all of our customers like that.  We’re not going to try and steer you to the most expensive solution just to get more money into our pockets, we’re going to try to find the best solution for your given problem and if we can’t help you solve it, well, we will tell you that too!

So if you need help with finding the correct EXAIR product to fit your application, give us a call.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

 

Award Winning HEPA Vac

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

Continuing my series of EXAIR award winning products for 2014.  Plant Engineering’s readers voted the Heavy Duty HEPA Vac a silver award for Environmental Health. The HD HEPA Vac differs greatly from most of the EXAIR products.  We often improve a work environment by reducing noise level from compressed air blow offs or limiting the energy usage of a facility by conserving compressed air, but when EXAIR introduced the Heavy Duty HEPA Vac, we entered a new area of environmental health.

hepafam_collection

High Efficiency Particulate Air standards are set by the US Department of Energy. Originally, the standards were created to protect workers, the public and the environment from particulate that may be found in DOE’s nuclear facilities. (For more information on HEPA filtration consult DOE-STD-3020-2005.) The Heavy Duty HEPA Vac filter meets the HEPA standards to filter a minimum 99.97% at 0.3 micron level.  Each filter is tested in strict accordance with IEST-RP-CC-007. After testing the filtration, vacuum and ventilation companies discovered the added benefit of using HEPA filtration is to remove particulate that may inflame allergies or asthmatic symptoms. Pollen, pet dander, and dust are physically too large to pass through the HEPA filter. For instance, most pet dander is 5 microns and will become trapped inside the circuitous air passage route inside the HEPA filter. Also, HEPA filters will even filter airborne pathogens.  Engineering Toolbox list several nominal particle sizes to give you the idea of scope. By meeting these strict standards, EXAIR’s Heavy Duty HEPA Vac can be used in a whole new industry where HEPA filtration is required.

Tries to imitate the late Billy Mays

But wait there’s more!

We haven’t even talked about the HEAVY DUTY DRY VAC component of the Heavy Duty HEPA Vac.  The Heavy Duty HEPA Vac features the same hardened alloy construction of the Heavy Duty Dry Vac.  This alloy holds up to abrasive materials such as garnet, crushed glass, sand or hard materials like stainless steel chips, pipe plugs, or brass piping caps.  We tested the conveying power of the Heavy Duty Dry Vac, it moved 32 pounds per minute of steel shot blasting media, 146% percent more than a standard Chip Vac.  With all this vacuuming power, it still maintains a surprisingly quiet 82 dBA of sound level.

The Heavy Duty HEPA Vac would be the perfect item to clean out that clogged filtration system, or to clean up that spilled kitty litter that will clog up a standard electrical vacuum. It will not blow tiny particulate all over your shop and it can help protect your personnel from airborne particulate.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
Davewoerner@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_DW