With Valentine’s Day coming up in the U.S. many of us will be buying chocolates for our significant other. My wife (somehow) doesn’t particularly care for chocolate, so I buy some for her anyway knowing that it will sit around until I eat it. I think most of us would agree that chocolate is even more delicious when melted and drizzled all over the top of just about anything. But, melted chocolate isn’t always a good thing.
I recently worked with a company that manufactures chocolate products. They came out with a new line of small candies and were encountering an issue during packaging. In their process, the chocolates are formed, cooled, and packaged for resale. During the packaging process they were experiencing a problem that caused the chocolates to melt. The bags are heat-sealed along the sides and bottom. This heat was transferring from the bag to the chocolates and causing them to melt. Rather than having a finished package of individual candies, they were melting together to form one large lump. Not exactly what they are hoping to deliver to their consumers.
Fortunately, EXAIR offers a range of different products that are suitable for cooling. For this application, they utilized a Model 5330 High Power Dual Outlet Cold Gun. With the fan-type nozzle installed, they were able to cool both sides of the package immediately after sealing and just before filling the bags with chocolates.
EXAIR’s Cold Gun was a Product of the Year finalist in 2007. Using only a source of compressed air, the Cold Gun and High-Power Cold Gun produces a stream of clean, cold air 50° (28°C) below your compressed air supply temperature. The Cold Gun is very quiet at only 70dBA and has no moving parts to wear out. Just supply it with clean, dry compressed air and its maintenance free! It’s available as both a standard and High-Power option, providing 2x the cooling power. Each style is available with either a single or dual cold outlet flow.
The Cold Gun is pre-set to an 80% Cold Fraction. In other words, 80% of the compressed air supplied to it will exhaust from the cold end of the tube, 20% from the hot end. This prevents the Cold Gun from freezing up during use and optimizes the gun’s cooling capacity. The Cold Gun is an ideal alternative to messy and expensive coolant mist systems. It eliminates the cost of purchase and disposal of cutting fluids as well as worker related health problems from breathing airborne coolant or slipping on wet floors. Replacing a coolant-based system also eliminates the need for secondary cleaning operations after milling or drilling.
If you have an application that you believe would be better served by the use of an EXAIR Cold Gun, give us a call.
Tyler Daniel
Application Engineer
E-mail: TylerDaniel@EXAIR.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_TD