I took a call from a customer today who was having a problem with residual fluid “pooling” on top of their parts after a heat treat dip tank application. After the parts are treated and removed they have to be set aside for an operator to walk around the tray with an air gun and manually blow off the parts, resulting in the fluid ending up on the shop floor. They were looking for a solution to effectively blow off the residual fluid prior to the trays being removed, so they could recover the excess fluid back in to the process and their operator could tend to other areas of production.
I recommended using 2 of our 30” Super Air Knives. The Super Air Knife produces a high velocity laminar sheet of airflow with a 40:1 amplification ratio (the ratio of entrained ambient air to compressed air) and only consumes 2.9 SCFM (per inch) @ 80 PSIG. Engineered for safety, they cannot be dead ended – meeting OSHA standard 1910.242(b) and they also meet the OSHA allowable noise exposure operating at a low 69 dBA (@ 80 PSIG).
By mounting 1 of the units on the front and the other unit on the back of the tank, they would be able to pass the tray through the high velocity airflow providing the desired blow off and recovery of the fluid. More importantly, the customer was able to eliminate the unsafe, wet floor, work environment.
If you have a similar application or would like to discuss your process, please feel free to contact us. We are always ready to help.
A few days ago one of our distributors sent me a table of information about some parts that their customer wanted to cool from 20°C down to -5°C. They needed help determining which model vortex tubes and how many would be needed to reach the desired temperature within the cooling enclosure space. That data table follows:
SYSTEM CONDITIONING
Weight (kg)
Material
cp (J/kg C)
ΔT
Q (J)
Time (h)
Power (W)
Disc
12.65
Grey Iron
935
25
295693.75
2
41.06857639
Pads
3
Ceramic
460
25
34500
2
4.791666667
Caliper
5.75
Aluminium
890
25
127937.5
2
17.76909722
Other parts
1.2
Aluminium
890
25
26700
2
3.708333333
Air (Vol=2m^3)
2.4
Air
1000
25
60000
2
8.333333333
TOTAL
25
544831.25
75.67100694
Their customer had also estimated an external heat load of about 400 Watts of heat dissipation into the inside of the chamber.
In this case the customer has already done a lot of the leg work to come up with the heat load needed to be offset within the chamber at 76 Watts of heat. They also made a reasonable estimation about their outside heat load at 400 Watts of heat. Adding the two together, we get a total of 476 Watts of heat that need to be dissipated. 476 Watts of heat x 3.41 = 1,623 Btu/hr. that needs to be generated to meet the chamber target temperature of -5°C. I generally tend to convert to °F at this point. So, -5°C = 23°F. This is the target temperature that we must achieve to be successful in the application.
In order to achieve the target temperature of 23°F and provide at least 1,623 Btu/hr. of cooling, we need to determine what temperature the cold air must be to allow us to generate such cooling power in this case. I try to shoot for a vortex tube output flow temperature that is 30 – 40°F LOWER than the target temperature. If we assume the input temperature of compressed air is at 72°F and we set the vortex tube to 60% cold fraction, we can expect an 86°F temperature drop when powered at 100 PSIG. With that in mind, we can then use the formula of Btu/hr = 1.0746 x ΔT°F x Cold flow rate in SCFM. We already know our ΔT between the cold flow and the target temperature which is 37°FΔT (23F – (-14F). So, now we can solve for our cold flow rate. That formula would then look like: 1,623 Btu/hr. = 1.0746 x 37°FΔT x Cold Flow. We come up with 41 SCFM of cold flow that is needed. Since we know the vortex tube is set at 60% cold flow, we solve for the total flow to know what size total input flow we need to provide and thus the size vortex tube or tubes. In this case we need 68 SCFM of compressed air flow at 100 PSIG. And so for this application our most appropriate size vortex tube would be (2) Model 3240 set at 60% cold fraction to provide the cooling energy needed for the application.
If you have a cooling application you would like some assistance with, please contact EXAIR.
I have recently had a few dealings with other companies recently which has left me with two reactions: 1) How they are still in business? and 2) They really have their customer service running well. The first company was, of course, a large conglomerate that provides our home internet service. The second company was a web-based company providing clothes dryer repair parts.
So the first company, it is a local supplier of internet service. I called to try and upgrade my service to higher speeds and see when I could get it changed. I have had their service for over 8 years and haven’t had a whole lot of issues with them, everything has been pretty good. That is until I tried to use their live chat feature on the website where I was told one price for the service, I then questioned why that price didn’t match the one on their site and was told in order to get that price I would need to call a certain number and speak with a representative. I thanked the person and made the call. It took me about 15 minutes or so to get to an actual human and then ended up the price still wasn’t the same and got a little run around on features, so I decided I would look at competitive service.
I spoke to their competitor in my area, which was very straightforward with pricing and answered every question I had directly and gave me a very speedy installation date of the next day, but were about 5 dollars more expensive. So I called my current provider back and got yet another different price but did finally get some straight answers… and then we got to the installation date – 3 weeks out. I asked if the fact I was a long-standing customer that was upgrading mattered and found out that is actually hurt my installation date. Since I was merely an upgrade it was extremely low ranking, but if I signed up for additional services then I would get someone to install it within 3 days. When I expressed my concern for this practice I was greeted with silence and sorry that is just how it is followed by when would you like me to schedule this.
So, needless to say, I contacted their competitor, laid everything out and got the service installed the next day, today I call to cancel my existing service and will hopefully never have to look back. The moral of the story here is, even though I was a long-standing customer the provider saw no merit in that and actually ranked me even lower than a new account. They were very cumbersome in how they answered questions which left me feeling uncomfortable and I couldn’t get even the same bad answer from the three different people I spoke with. Ultimately I left them as a customer and am glad to be with another provider.
As for the second instance, I needed to fix the clothes dryer because it was making some funny noises. So I took a few pieces off, moved stuff around, didn’t see a whole lot wrong and put it back together. It started making the noise again so I gave it “The Fonz” treatment (hit it hard) and all was good. The next time I went to dry something my wife then accused me of not starting the dryer because everything was still wet. I took a look into it yet again and this time I took the dryer all the way apart thanks to an informal video from the manufacturer. The problem seemed to be some bad preventative maintenance on my part and hair/lint wrapping around a roller guide which cause the roller to stop and the drum to start going slower, as well as a lot of burnt crud around the heating element. So then the parts search began. I found a company online whose site was easy to navigate, had lots of pictures, even used their live chat which I got quick responses from, and even found videos of how to fix the exact problem I was having. So I ordered the parts late at night on Monday, their site showed in stock and shipping the next day. Tuesday I end up getting a confirmation that the parts will be shipped. Wednesday I received the parts as well as a follow-up e-mail confirming that the parts had been delivered.
The moral of this interaction as a customer is that I experienced what I hope our customers at EXAIR experience everyday. All the information I needed was in one place and easy to find, all the parts were in stock, I got quick responses that were truthful, and in the end even after I ordered the part I still got great customer service. Needless to say I have bookmarked their site and will be returning.
Here at EXAIR, you don’t get greeted by a robot when you call during business hours, you get greeted by a human. We do our best to ensure all information you need is accessible from our site, as well as back that support up with our Application Engineering staff being available by phone, e-mail, chat, fax, visits to EXAIR, and even mail if need be. Then if you decide to order something from us, if it is standard stock, we ship it same day as long as we get the order by 3 PM EST and are shipping within the United States. Then, we offer helpful videos, as well as support after you have made your purchase. On top of all that, we stand behind our products with a 30 day guarantee and a 5 year built to last warranty.
So no matter how small a project you have, or if you are having any issues with your existing supplier for compressed air products, contact us and see if you notice a difference.
EXAIR has continued to build on a large catalog of Intelligent Compressed Air Products. In catalog 27 we introduce (2) new Atomizing Nozzles to add to our product’s functionality and versatility. Today, I want to talk about one of the spray nozzles we added. Don’t worry! Next week, I will talk about the second nozzle, if you must look ahead follow this link.
Our new nozzle is the Internal Mix Deflected Fan Nozzle. The nozzle produce a flat fan of atomized liquid at a right angle to the nozzle’s orientation. The nozzle is designed for pressure fed application, where the pressurized liquid does not need to be controlled independently from pressurized air. In cases where space is limited, the directed flat fan frees up over 3 3/4″ extra inches of height clearance on the standard nozzle. With the no drip spray nozzle, it can gain you over 4 inches of clearance. This clearance can be very important when you consider the coverage you gain in a tight space.
Let me give you an example. A customer is running a 28 inch conveyor of machined parts through a 6″ tunnel and wishes to spray a solvent across the parts evenly. In the past we would have needed to use the AF2010SS No Drip nozzles. The AF2010SS nozzle would have done a great job, but the nozzle would need to be mounted at the top of the tunnel. The overall length of the nozzle would limit the spray distance to 2 3/4″ inches. With only 2 3/4″ of spray, it would require 11 nozzles to cover the 28″ span. With the AD2010SS the bulk of the nozzle and the no drip body can be mounted behind the spray nozzle, which allows the spray distance to be 5 1/2″ which would cover a wide 8 1/4″ area. With 8 1/4″ of coverage, what would have required (11) nozzles now only requires (4) nozzles.
