Year: 2024

EXAIR Safety Air Gun Promotion is Here!

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

Through the months of August and September, EXAIR is running our Safety Air Gun Promotion. End-users throughout the United States and Canada will receive a free Model 1126, 1″ Flat Super Air Nozzle when they purchase a Safety Air Gun direct through us. This includes our VariBlast Precision, VariBlast Compact, Soft Grip, Heavy Duty, and TurboBlast Safety Air Guns.

For in depth information about our line of Safety Air Guns and this promotion, head on over to EXAIR.com to learn more. But for a brief summary of our Safety Air Guns, stick around in this blog!

All of our Safety Air Guns are durable and comfortable to use. Every model is designed to use an engineered Air Nozzle that will entrain large volumes of air, enabling them to be quiet and efficient. This allows them to be OSHA compliant to OSHA standard 1910.242 (b); the airflow cannot be blocked or dead ended.

Our VariBlast Precision Safety Air Gun is extremely lightweight and the most comfortable to operate during long periods of extended use. It features a variable trigger valve which produces varying force levels depending on how much the trigger is activated. The small diameter nozzle and extension will fit into tight spaces while providing a strong blowing force.

The VariBlast Compact Safety Air Gun is a uniquely powerful gun which produces variable force depending on trigger activation. This cast aluminum gun is equipped with any of our 1/8 NPT engineered air nozzles. The VariBlast Compact Safety Air Gun is small, comfortable and powerful while remaining light and ergonomic. It has two inlets for flexible air supply options and a large loop at the top for hanging when not in use.

The Soft Grip Safety Air Gun has a durable cast aluminum body suitable for rugged industrial use. The large trigger makes for easy operation and a convenient hook at the top allows the gun to be easily stored. Chip Shields for worker safety and extensions for hard to reach areas are available, up to 72” long.

The Heavy Duty style of safety air gun is powerful with a durable aluminum cast body and ergonomic composite rubber grip, best suited for rugged industrial environments. Hours of fatigue-free operation are possible. The 3/8 NPT inlet also allows for greater compressed air flow, resulting in higher force and flow than other air guns.

Features & benefits of the new TurboBlast Safety Air Gun

Finally, our TurboBlast Safety Air Gun is designed for extended use without fatigue during the most demanding applications, which require a huge amount of force to solve. These air guns produce up to 23 pounds of force onto a target! The rugged cast aluminum handle is covered with a soft, durable elastomer grip. The low profile trigger button will disengage if released. 3′ and 6′ extensions are available.

If you would like to take advantage of this promotion, or if you would like to discuss any other point-of-use compressed air application, give us a call!

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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UL Hazardous Locations Class 2 Division 1

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Per the National Electrical Code (NEC) there are (3) classifications for areas that are defined as hazardous.  They are Class I (gases & vapors), Class II (flammable dust) & Class III (fibers). The focus of today’s Blog is on Class II locations.

Class II locations are those that are hazardous because of the presence of combustible dust. Note that the dust must be present in sufficient quantities for a fire or explosion hazard to exist. The fact that there is some combustible dust present does not mean a Class II hazardous location exists. Dust is defined as a combustible material that must exist as a finely divided solid of 420 microns (0.420 mm) or less. This will allow the dust to pass through a No. 40 sieve.  Just as in Class I, Division 1 and 2, the subdivision of Class II into Divisions 1 and 2 identifies the likelihood that there is an explosion hazard.

Division 1 locations are defined as an area where the amount of combustible dust is either suspended in the air or accumulated on surfaces in a sufficient concentration to allow for ignition.  The ignition could be caused by a failure or malfunction of the equipment in the classified area.  Group E & F dust (see chart below) is considered conductive and could penetrate into electrical equipment such as electric motors, control panels, electrical panels, etc., and cause an electrical failure.

Chart1

Group E dusts are metal dusts, such as aluminum and magnesium. In addition to being highly abrasive, and likely to cause overheating of motor bearings if it gets into them. Group E dusts are also electrically conductive and if they are allowed to enter an enclosure, can cause an electrical failure.

Chart2

Group F dusts are carbonaceous. The primary dust in this group is coal dust. Coal dust has a lower ignition temperature than those in Group E. While Group F dust has a higher thermal insulating value than the layer of Group E.  Therefore Group F requires more control of the temperature on the surfaces that the dust settles on. Group E dusts are semi-conductive, however if the voltages are 600 volts or less it is not generally considered a factor.

Chart3

Group G dusts include plastic dust, most chemical dust and food-grain dust. They are not electrically conductive. Generally, these dusts have the highest thermal insulating characteristics and the lowest ignition temperatures. Therefore, the equipment used in Group G areas must have the lowest surface temperatures to prevent ignition of a layer.

Chart4

Lastly, equipment rated for use in Classified Environments has a rating called the Temperature Code or “T-Code”.  This is the temperature or rather, temperature range that the rated device will operate normally and/or in a failed or failing state.  Consider something as common as a light fixture, electric motors, etc., as they could become hot enough to cause ignition depending on the type of dust in the area.  So be sure to check the “T-Codes” for every piece of equipment that will be used within a Classified Environment.

Chart5

When you are looking for expert advice on Hazardous Location Cabinet Coolers or safe, quiet and efficient point of use compressed air products give us a call.   We would enjoy hearing from you.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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In-Line High Vacuum E-Vac Solves Workholding Fixture Problem

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Workholding refers to any method of keeping an object in a fixed position while force is exerted onto it. If you’ve ever put something in a clamp or vise to loosen (or tighten) a bolt or screw into it, you’ve performed workholding. In fact, if you’ve ever wrapped a napkin around a cold bottle of your favorite beverage to get a better grip while twisting the cap off, that’s workholding too.

In manufacturing and machining settings, any number of different clamps, fixtures, jigs, chucks, vises, etc., are commonly used for workholding. For efficiency, the main feature of a good workholding device is an easily repeatable setup that can secure the piece quickly, and release it just as quickly. The table of a milling machine, for example, will commonly have t-handle clamps for this.

In addition to mechanically clamping parts, they can also be held in place with vacuum. The basic principle is kind of like an air hockey table, but in reverse: instead of floating the puck on a thin curtain of air being blown out of the holes on the table, it’d be held in place by pulling air back through the holes, to draw a vacuum between the top of the table and the bottom of the puck. Vacuum pump systems can be used for this, but they can get pricey if you don’t already have one (with enough extra capacity) to tie in to. Those pumps have moving parts, so they’re going to need maintenance from time to time as well.

EXAIR E-Vac Vacuum Generators, on the other hand, don’t have any moving parts to wear or electric motors to burn out. They’re compact, they draw rated vacuum as soon as you start supplying compressed air to them, and they drop that vacuum off just as soon as you turn the air off.

For most common workholding applications, we’ll specify an Adjustable E-Vac, for a couple of reasons:

  • Because they’re adjustable, you can quickly dial in different vacuum – and vacuum flow – levels needed to hold parts of different sizes, shapes, and/or weights.
  • They have a large enough throat diameter to pass small amounts of chips or coolant, so the part doesn’t have to be perfectly clean when you place it in the fixture.
The wide throat diameter of the Adjustable E-Vac makes it suitable for applications where small amounts of particulate and/or liquid may be drawn through.

Of course, not EVERY application is a COMMON one…case in point, I had the pleasure of helping a caller from a tool & die company the other day, who wanted to make a fixture to hold a metal block in a V-shaped fixture with two flat surfaces that correspond to the two flat surfaces of the block that won’t be worked on. The idea was to put several holes in each surface, with shallow countersinks for o-rings, so that when the block was set, the o-rings would make a positive seal, and pull vacuum on those holes with an E-Vac. Since there’s a tight seal between the blocks & fixture, and the blocks will be clean & dry, this doesn’t require the chip/coolant passage of an Adjustable E-Vac. And since the cutting & drilling will exert a good amount of force, in several directions, we DO want a high vacuum level to make sure it doesn’t move. At all. No matter what.

For this application, we specified a Model 810023M In-Line High Vacuum E-Vac. It’ll generate 27″Hg worth of vacuum, and in case of any minuscule movement or misalignment of the block, it’ll provide an impressive 2.67 SCFM worth of vacuum flow (to overcome any leakage past the o-rings) and still hold the block in place with 24″Hg.

EXAIR E-Vacs provide instantaneous vacuum response, and are engineered for high efficiency to minimize air consumption.

If you’d like to find out more about EXAIR Vacuum Generators for workholding, pick-and-place material handling, vacuum forming/filling/pressing, or any other application where you need any more than a few inches of mercury worth of vacuum, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Optimizing Compressed Air: 6th Step – Lower the Pressure!

Published on by Tyler DanielLeave a comment

The last step in EXAIR’s Six Steps to Optimizing Your Compressed Air System centers around air pressure. Unless you’re controlling your air pressure for each individual application, there’s a strong chance you can achieve quite a bit of savings by lowering the air pressure just upstream.

In any application necessitating the use of compressed air, pressure should be controlled to minimize the air consumption at the point of use. Pressure regulators are available to control the air pressure within the system and throttle the appropriate supply of air to any pneumatic device. As the last of the six steps to optimizing your compressed air system, controlling air at the point of use can often be overlooked.

Pressure Regulators “dial in” performance to get the job done without using more air than necessary.

Pressure regulators utilize a control knob that is turned to either increase/decrease tension on a spring. The spring puts a load on the diaphragm which separates internal air pressure from the ambient pressure. Typically made of a flexible rubber material, these diaphragms react very quickly to changes in the air supply. By either increasing or decreasing the flow of air based on the load on the diaphragm, downstream pressure remains fairly constant.

While one advantage of a pressure regulator is certainly maintaining consistent pressure on your compressed air devices, using them to minimize your pressure can result in dramatic savings to your costs of compressed air. As pressure and flow are directly related, lowering the pressure supplied results in less compressed air usage. EXAIR recommends operating your Intelligent Compressed Air Products at the minimum pressure necessary to achieve a successful application. If you notice a desirable result at a pressure of 60 PSIG, or even less, there’s no need to run full line pressure. In-line point of use pressure regulators are the simplest and most reliable way to allow you to dial down the pressure for any compressed air operated product.

When selecting a pressure regulator for your application, it’s critical that it is appropriately sized to supply adequate volume to the point of use devices downstream. Doing so, minimizes the risk of experiencing “droop”. Droop is a decrease in outlet pressure from the specified setting due to an increase in flow rate.  Droop occurs when the demand at the point of use exceeds the volume of air that the regulator can supply. By ensuring the pressure regulator is rated to deliver a sufficient volume of air, you’ll reduce the chances of experiencing droop. EXAIR offers pressure regulators in kits along with many of our products. We’ve done the hard part for you and made sure they’re properly sized!

If you’re looking for ways to help lessen the demand on your compressor, EXAIR’s team of Application Engineers will be happy to help. Reach out to us via phone, chat, or e-mail and see for yourself just how easy it can be to start saving compressed air!

Tyler Daniel, CCASS

Application Engineer

E-mail: TylerDaniel@EXAIR.com

Twitter: @EXAIR_TD