A few weeks ago I got a call from a large North American manufacturer of Strut Columns. They recently got a large recall on products they were shipping because metal chips and debris were causing the oil seals to wear and leak prematurely. They found that the manufacturing process could leave chips clinging to the inside diameter (ID) of the outer tube and would make it past there visual inspection. They wanted an option to design into a robotic “cleaning station” where the ID would get cleaned while the outside features were getting cleaned as well. Well for me it was pretty easy to select the EXAIR Back Blow Nozzles!

We offer three different sizes to fit inside a wide variety of diameters from ¼” (6.3mm) to 16” (406mm) ID.  They are designed to clean tubing, pipes, hoses, channels, and extruded “odd” shapes.  The 360^o rear airflow pattern can “wipe” without touching the internal surface to remove coolant and chips.  For the application above, I recommended the model 1006SS Back Blow Air Nozzle to fit inside the 2″ (51mm) opening.  The range for this Back Blow Air Nozzle is from 7/8” (22mm) to 4” (102mm) inside diameters.  This 316SS robust nozzle would last a long time without having to change or replace.

At first they purchased a hand held system on one of our Heavy Duty Safety air guns, This gave them the ability to test the concept out and they found it worked great wiping the ID clean of all unwanted debris. They used the 1306SS-12-CS, this gun with the 12″ extension and chip guard gave them a great platform to test!

Once they wrapped their testing up, they replaced this manual operation with just the nozzle on a 1.5″ schedule 40 pipe. The nozzle was mounted on the end and a robot would slide the part ID over the nozzle!

This $117.00 nozzle was able to fix an issue that caused hundreds if thousands of dollars in recalls! That’s why we take time and intelligently design our nozzles, the 1006SS was designed for these type of applications and it excels in them!

Using Engineered nozzles can make a big difference in the function of your processes – not only to your financial bottom line, but to everyone’s safety, health, and livelihood.  If you’d like to find out more about how EXAIR can help, give me a call.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

Send me an Email
Find us on the Web 
Like us on Facebook
Twitter: @EXAIR_JS