Month: August 2015

Peanut Butter And The Flat Nozzle

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

So, the call came in about mid-morning – an operator at a facility that fills plastic jars with peanut butter needed help with an application…

And I almost got stuck thinking about peanut butter. I like food, and peanut butter is near the top of my list. I’ve seen it successfully applied to cheeseburgers, and the peanut butter & bacon sandwich is even a breakfast staple in some of the Boy Scout groups I’ve been involved with. Crunchy or creamy, peanut butter rules.

Never underestimate the power of peanut butter...or bacon...to improve the quality of any sandwich.
Never underestimate the power of peanut butter…or bacon…to improve the quality of any sandwich. And together, they’re unbeatable. Just don’t ask your cardiologist.

Now, I’m a pro, so I didn’t allow this digression to supplant the attention I was giving the caller. The application was simple enough: the nozzle feeding the jars retains a small amount of the product at the tip, which drips off when it’s good & ready, thank you very much. This is oftentimes when the jar is in motion, so this little glob falls right onto the rim of the jar, causing issues with the protective seal, and a continuing mess as this jar with peanut butter on the outside of it travels down the line.

I recommended a Model 1126SSW 316SS 1” Flat Super Air Nozzle, with Swivel Fitting. They can install this to blow precisely where the air flow can direct the last bit of peanut butter from the fill nozzle into the jar, eliminating the mess, and any chance of a faulty lid seal.

1126pr_300wide
The Model 1126/1126SS 1″ Flat Super Air Nozzle is ideal for high velocity, forceful blow off applications 

If you’d like to know more about how EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products might help your processes run a little smoother, feel free to give us a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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Peanut Butter and Bacon Sandwich photo courtesy of Arnold Gatilao  Creative Commons License

1″ Flat Super Air Nozzle Is Key In This Application

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

I was recently working with an automation company who was looking for a way to remove reject blank keys from a 12″ conveyor. The keys are placed on the conveyor in single rows spaced roughly 1″ apart, As the keys travel down the line, occasionally there will be a key that was damaged during the stamping process and needs to be removed from the production run. We initially discussed our Super Air Knife to blow across the width of the conveyor but they wanted to focus on the various rows, providing a single blast of air to remove just single irregular keys, one at a time.

Broken Key

I recommended they use (6) of our Model # 1126 1″ Flat Super Air Nozzle and space the units 1″ apart to cover the width of the conveyor. The 1″ Flat Super Air Nozzle provides a 1″ wide, high velocity focused airflow. The unit is shipped with a .015″ shim installed, providing 9.8 ounces of force when operated at 80 PSIG. The shim can be changed to different thickness levels either opening or closing the gap, providing more or less force and flow to meet the demand of the application. They were also looking for a way to operate the units independently so the nozzle would only work when their sensor identified a reject key. For this independent control, I recommended they use a solenoid valve on each supply line, allowing them to operate the nozzles from their control system.

1126
1″ Flat Super Air Nozzle with shims for adjustability.

To see how we can help with your automated system, please contact an application engineer @ 800-903-9247.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

Broken Key image courtesy of Alex Roberts   Creative Commons License

Where Does 25 Cents For 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet Of Air Come From?

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Wasting compressed air 2

Being an Application Engineer at EXAIR you tend to do a good amount of return on investment (ROI) calculations.   This is mainly to tell customers just how fast installing an EXAIR product on their system is going to pay its purchase price back and start saving them money.

In order to do these calculations there are several variables we must know.   The list is below.

  • Cost of EXAIR Product (This is an easy one for us to know.)
  • EXAIR Product Consumption (Another easy one!)
  • Current Product Consumption (If this is an unknown, we will test it for free!)
  • Cost of Compressed Air / 1,000 SCF (This is the most common unknown.)

With these four variables we can calculate the amount of air and the amount of money the EXAIR product will save over an existing non-engineered blowoff.   Let me address the two variables which have to come from you, the customer.

Current Product Consumption – If this value is not known please don’t guess at it.  We offer a free service which we refer to as our Efficiency Lab where you send us in your existing blowoff device and we will test it for force flow and noise level.   If you don’t know what pressure you are operating the piece at we will help you find out how to get that and then we will test our products at the same pressures.   This way you get a true apple to apples comparison.   Then, once we are done testing, you will get a recommendation from us in a formal report as to what EXAIR product will best replace your existing product.  Then we will pay for return shipping of your blowoff device back to you. So, if you don’t know how much air you are currently using then give us a call.  We will figure it out for you.

Efficiency Lab
The EXAIR Efficiency Lab is FREE!

Cost of Compressed Air/ 1,000 SCF – This is more often than not, the unknown variable in the equation.  The good news is there is a general standard assumption of twenty-five cents per 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet of compressed air.   This works out to be around 8 cents per kW/hr.  So even if you don’t know what you pay to compress the air, if you know what you are paying per kilowatt hour for your energy then we can calculate within reason what it costs for you to generate your compressed air. For reference, 8 cents per kilowatt-hour falls between the average US cost per kilowatt hour for commercial end-users (10.7/kWh) and industrial end-users (6.9/kWh).*

The best part of all is…EXAIR has a calculator available right on our website which provides air and dollar savings per minute, hour day and year as well as a payback in days for the EXAIR product purchase. On top of that, any step along the way that you aren’t sure of, we will help you out for free, even testing your product!

In case you would like to see the math, the formula used is below.

Basic Equation To Go From Cost Per kiloWatt Hour to Cost Per 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet of Compressed Air
Basic equation to go from Cost Per kiloWatt Hour to Cost Per 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet of Compressed Air

Brian Farno
Application Engineer Manager
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

*latest U.S. EIA report here

 

 

 

EXAIR’s Dual Cabinet Coolers w/Electronic Thermostat Control

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment
ETC Dual CC Systems
Model 9258 ETC System

Hi Folks! Well we have managed to expand our offering of Cabinet Cooler systems to include Dual Cabinet Cooler Systems that are now available with the Electronic Thermostat Control. Previously, the Dual Cabinet Cooler Systems were only available from stock with our standard thermostat model 9017 and an appropriate solenoid valve to suit the voltage needs of the application.

Now, customers who have a need for one of the Dual Cabinet Cooler Systems can get all the flexibility, ease of use, feedback and adjustment that comes with the ETC controller. If you would like to review an in-depth video on how the Electronic Thermostat Control works, you can click to watch a video I completed on this topic, Video Blog: Electronic Temperature Control.

Some of the features of the Electronic Thermostat Control include:

  1. Display of current temperature inside enclosure.
  2. Easy adjustment of temperature set point, temperature unit of measure and offset temperature (mentioned in the video).
  3. The RTD temperature sensor allows for system hysteresis of +/- 1 °F.
  4. The ETC is available in a an enclosure suitable for NEMA 12, 4 and 4X environments to go along with all our Cabinet Cooler Systems.
  5. The ETC is also UL Listed and CE compliant to insure good, safe operation.
  6. 120 and 240 VAC, 50/60 Hz. Systems are available.

If you would like to add the Electronic Thermostat Control on your Cabinet Cooler System, consider models 9238, 9239 (for single Cabinet Cooler Systems), 9258 and 9259 (for Dual Cabinet Cooler Systems) Electronic Thermostat Control Systems for your application.

Neal Raker, International Sales Manager
nealraker@exair.com
@EXAIR_NR