Author: bdwages

Super Air Knife Accessories

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There is no question that the Super Air Knife is the most alluring air knife on the market. Today we are going to do a little runway show to showcase some of its enticing accessories. On its own, the Super Air Knife already offers these generous features; laminar airflow, quiet OSHA approved operation, 40:1 amplification ratios, and the velocity on these could literally blow you away. But there are options that can make these shiny marvelous tools even better.

1st on the carpet, we have the Universal Mounting System. This is a sheer work of beauty. The simplistic, yet practical design offers you a high level of mounting options. This charmer can help you achieve any position or angle desired with the simple turn of a nut. You can mount this on the top of the Super Air Knife by simply removing a few screws and skillfully placing the bracket in place followed by resetting with the same screws, just be sure to torque them back to 7.5 ft-lbs. If you want to mount this from the bottom it is very easy as well, you just need to BYOB (bring your own bolts). You may need more than one mounting kit to be secure depending on the length and type of your tool. You will need one mounting system for aluminum knives up to 23″, two for Knives from 24″ – 54″, three for knives 55″ – 71″, four for knives 72″ – 95″ and five for knives over 96″. When purchasing your state of the art Super Air Knife, don’t forget this stylish accessory, this is what the cool people buy…

Next in line, we have our inviting Plumbing Kits. These beasts add flare and purpose to your Super Air Knife like no other. When you grow out of the kid’s section, and purchase these longer Knives (more than 24″), these plumbing kits can change your world. No longer will you need to plumb your airlines to the Super Air Knife every 12″ or so, these bad boys will allow you to use one inlet of air with the Air Knives from 24″- 59″ and only two air inlets (each end) on Knives from 60″ – 108″. Not only are these Plumbing Kits a huge time and resource saver, we will happily install them for you, making your install that much easier. If that’s not tempting, I don’t know what is.

Next on the runway are our enticing Coupling Bracket Kits. What better way to add length to these shiny pieces of genius than to marry them off to one another. That’s right, these will allow you to join together 2 (or more) of these silver colored beauties to gain additional length. If 108″ isn’t long enough for you, we can get you what you desire by simply coupling Super Air Knives together. These coupling kits have two hard metal (material matches the metal of the Air Knife) plates that screw partially on to the end of each knife, forever fusing this union.

Our last showing today are our tempting Shim Sets. Shims allow us to control the volume of air that comes out of the air knife. Like all things beautiful, these come in different colors and sizes. For our Super Air Knives, these come installed with our everyday sized red shim that is 0.002″ thick. For a thinner selection, we offer our Amber shim that is only 0.001″. If you prefer this to be a little thicker, we offer our tan shim that is 0.003″. And for those of you that need that big beautiful green shim, it comes in at 0.004″ thick. One of the greatest features of these Shim Sets is that you can take advantage of more than one shim at a time, giving you up to a 0.008″ thick air gap for maximum airflow.

I hope you have enjoyed our Super Air Knife Accessory lineup today. If you have any questions, or want to purchase some of these fine accessories, please don’t hesitate to reach out today.

Thank you for stopping by,

Brian Wages

Application Engineer

EXAIR LLC
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Cover photo by glorife and licensed by Pixabay

Why doesn’t my “XYZ” work?

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Pic by PoseMuse licensed by Pixabay

You’ve probably been there. You install a new Super Air Knife, or an EasySwitch Wet-Dry Vac (or any other product), and it doesn’t work as we promised. Or it works great for 2-3 years, and now it’s faltering. You have trouble shot everything you know to do. You’ve changed the filters, checked for leaks on the product, checked the connections, but still it is not performing as it was, or how it is supposed to. This is usually when I get the call, and more times than not, the issue is related to the air supply.

Whether this new item isn’t performing, or an older product has been working for 2 weeks, months, or years and stops, we first need to confirm the pressure. First, we need to make sure there is a T and pressure gauge at the point of use. Although psig is only one factor of the air flow, if it is too low (or too high in some cases) that is a definite problem. Without the proper psig, our tools will not function properly. If the psig is sufficient, and our product is not operating as claimed, the next thing we check is the SCFM.

There are a few ways of finding the SCFM…one is very easy and reliable, and the other can get you close enough to realize if there is a problem or not. The easy way is by installing a Digital Flow Meter near the point of use. Although the most reliable, it is not always feasible or cost-effective to have these near every air application in your system.

Without the Flow Meter, we need to start looking for reasons why the SCFM is not there. Whether a new install or an existing one, we need to evaluate the air flow by starting with the basics. Let’s start by identifying how much air your application requires. For instance, a Super Air Knife consumes 2.9 SCFM per inch, so a 48″ Super Air Knife will use 139.2 SCFM (at standard operation), that is equivalent to a 35 HP compressor dedicated solely to this 1 product. Assuming your compressor is large enough to flow this amount of air, we need to see what other products are being utilized in the system as well. Does your overall system have enough air to run each product?

So your compressor is large enough, the next step is to look at your line size. To run 139.2 SCFM, you will need a 3/4″ line and that is if you are within 20 ft of the source (compressor). If you are 150 feet away, you will need 1 1/4″ lines, and so on. This is an issue that pops up often.

The next thing we look for is any type of restrictions on the line. Are your filter and oil separators sized properly? Were there new products / stations added to the line. Is the product itself being maintained properly? Is your Air clean and dry? Are there any other line restrictions that could be interfering with the flow?

If all of these things check out, our last course of action is to get the product back for evaluation. We will tear it apart, many times needing to destroy it to find the cause. But proudly, I must say that we rarely find a manufacturing defect, but we look hard just in case, because we want to know as well. We can usually show you the issue, and find the root cause. Our reputation and quality is the highest in the industry, and it is not something we take lightly. We want to find a defect if it exists, so that we can immediately address them, and head off any future issues.

If you have one of our products that isn’t functioning as you hoped, or just purchased one that isn’t up to par, please look at some of the items mentioned above. And as always, reach out to us and let us help f we can.

Thank you for stopping by,

Brian Wages

Application Engineer

EXAIR Corporation
Visit us on the Web
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Cover photo by gerralt / 25503 and licensed by Pixabay

The Gen4 Ion Air Cannon for Static Elimination at a Distance

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The static eliminating, Gen4 Ion Air Cannon is ideal for those applications where you need a concentrated flow of Ionized Air to remove static and dust. The Gen4 Ion Air Cannon will entrain a large amount of ambient air, and with the ion emitter point place in the air flow, it can produce static eliminating effectiveness up to 15 feet away. This is perfect for those confined areas that need a concentrated flow of static eliminating ions. These can be operated with a compressed air supply as low as 10 PSIG.

The Gen 4 Ion Air Cannon has a small profile to fit in tight spaces and still have a large amount of air flow. It comes mounted on a sturdy stand with lockable swivels and predrilled holes to allow for easy mounting and orientation of output airflow. Simply connect a compressed air supply, plug in the power supply power cord, and you are in business. Beyond knowing how it can be mounted, here is how it works:

Below, is the Gen4 Ion Air Cannon performance table based on 12″ distance from a target:

The Gen 4 Ion Air Cannon has a multitude of uses; form and fill bag openings, neutralizing shrink wrap, cleaning and neutralizing parts, removing static on assemblies, pre-paint dust removal and so much more. If you have any questions on how this can help you, please do not hesitate to call me or any of our application engineers.

Thank you for stopping by,

Brian Wages

Application Engineer

EXAIR Corporation
Visit us on the Web
Follow me on Twitter

Air Amplifiers – Done Your Way

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Photo by Ryan McGuire Licensed by Pixabay

Air Amplifiers are amazing tools that pack a punch (if the punch is a ton of air flow). Imagine an amplification rate up to 25 times. You supply 29 SCFM and yield 730 SCFM coming out? It’s incredible. These little beauties work by flowing compressed air (80psig) through the inlet to the annular chamber. It is then throttled through a small ring nozzle at a high velocity. This Airstream employs the Coanda profile directing all this air to the outlet. Although you should never blow air at a person, a little bit of air input, would easily produce the results to the right!

Why would you use these? See below for starters:

Although we have many options to choose from, sometimes you may need something outside the box. Maybe it’s a different size? A different Material? A different fitting? Ask us we do have many ways to customize this product. Here are 3 examples of things we have done in the past.

The High Temp Air Amplifier (right) was developed for moving hot air to surface needing uniform heating while in a furnace or oven. This is designed for temps up to 700°F, and is now a standard offering in 1 1/4″.

Another example of a “Special” Air Amplifier is a stainless steel version with a flange mount (left). This was designed for exhausting flue gases from a furnace. If there were a power failure, this Special Air Amplifier will quickly evacuate harmful fumes, prior to affecting the workers.

A third “Special” was made when we were brought an application that required a sticky material to be pulled through the Air Amplifier, and it was unable to stick to the inside of the Amplifier. So we developed an Adjustable Air Amplifier with e PTFE Plug (Right), so the material would not stick.

If you have an application that requires a tool that is not quite in line with what we offer, don’t hesitate to reach out. I can’t promise you that we will be able to make it for you, but I can promise you that we will look at it and give it our best shot.

Thank you for stopping by,

Brian Wages

Application Engineer EXAIR Corporation
Visit us on the Web
Follow me on Twitter