I recently was contacted by a customer that had an application for spraying silicone. They currently were using our Atomizing Nozzles, and they were impressed with the operation. But they needed to change the spray pattern for a different application. They had a variety of parts which required different spray angles and liquid amounts. With the EXAIR Atomizing Nozzles, the air and liquid caps are interchangeable with the same body size. So, you can change liquid flow rates, spray patterns, and even go from a pressurized liquid system to a siphon fed. I created an informal video that shows how this can be done (click HERE). To start, this customer did not know which model number that they were using. So, I had to determine the size and type in order to make the proper changes.
To do the “forensics”, we need to know a couple of things. First, we need to find the inlet air and liquid port sizes. EXAIR offers three sizes in NPT or BSP; 1/8”, 1/4”, and 1/2”. Then we would need to know if it is a standard or No-Drip option. This is easily found by looking at the top of the Atomizing Nozzle. A standard option has the liquid stem valve that has a knurled adjustment knob; while the No-Drip option has a cylinder in place of the liquid stem valve. From the photo below, they were using the standard option.
Since they were pumping the silicone solution to the Atomizing Nozzle, the next step was to look at the Liquid Cap and the Air Cap. EXAIR stamps characters on each Liquid and Air Cap (reference photo below). The Liquid Caps will only have numbers, and the Air Caps will combine letters and numbers. From these details, I could determine that the customer was using a model AF1010SS Internal Mix Flat Fan Atomizing Nozzle.
For their next application, they were looking to spray more of the silicone solution at a smaller target area. I recommended the model AN1030SS. By changing the air and liquid pressure in conjunction with adjusting the liquid stem valve, they could dial in the exact amount of silicone spray to not overuse it. For this customer, I was able to recommended to just replace the liquid and air cap to change from the model AF1010SS to the model AN1030SS.
If you have a liquid that you would like to spray evenly, efficiently, and effectively; EXAIR Atomizing Nozzles can do that for you. For the customer above, they did not have to purchase new units as they could just swap out the caps to make the change. This saved the company money and time as the bodies of the Atomizing Nozzles were already aligned to cover both parts. If you would like know more about our Atomizing Nozzles and the features that they provide, you can contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR. We will be happy to help.
John Ball
International Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb