Tag: air knife cooling

EXAIR Videos: Where to get them, and how they help

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to explaining how our products work, a video may be worth even more. EXAIR has an extensive video library ranging from quick product overviews, to in-depth, step-by-step guides on how to perform maintenance. If there is an application you’re working through, we likely have a video on it!

I find myself using these videos on a daily basis to help explain or demonstrate a particular aspect of an EXAIR product to a customer. It is an invaluable resource for me in my day to day life, and the best part is it is free and available for you 24/7.

You will find many of our videos under the ‘Resources’ tab at the top of our website www.EXAIR.com. From here you can select a product category. If you need to know how to change the shim in a Super Air Knife, or how to increase the conveyance of a Line Vac, you will find all these videos and many more organized here.

Videos on our Industrial Housekeeping products are particularly useful, as preventive maintenance is an important part of keeping them operating like new. Our video on “How to Troubleshoot Leaks with the Chip Trapper Vac” walks you through all the necessary steps to find and fix any leaks, as well as providing part numbers if replacement parts may be needed.

Another great resource is our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@exaircorporation. As well as product overviews and demonstrations, you will also find non-product related videos, like “How to Use EXAIR’s Cabinet Cooler® System Calculator”, or “Six Steps: How to Optimize Your Compressed Air System”.

We also include video demonstrations in our blogs. If there is a topic you are interested in, you can search our blog. We may well have a video there as well!

Ultimately, we want to make it as simple and easy as possible to use and maintain our products. If you would like to discuss your application, feel free to contact us. 

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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EXAIR Offers An Easy Way to Improve Your Metal Dipping Process

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

A company had a process where they galvanized metal sheets to protect them from corrosion.  The system consisted of six baths to properly coat the metal.  In order, it was a caustic wash, water rinse, pickling, water rinse, flux solution, and then zinc galvanizing.  The sheets were 126” (3.2 meters) wide, and the sequence consisted of the parts being dipped into each bath for a certain length of time.  The parts would then be raised above the solution to drip prior to moving to the next bath.  This customer was looking for a better way to improve the process as well as to help reduce the drips and runs from the hot galvanizing, which were manually “rubbed” out before hardening.  They contacted EXAIR to find a solution. 

With similar applications, EXAIR has a great product for non-contact wiping flat surfaces. We call them Super Air Knives.  I wrote a blog similar to this on a much smaller scale; “How a Super Air Knife Helps with Metal Etching“. The Super Air Knives use compressed air to generate a force at varying degrees.  With the engineered design, we are able to add free ambient air at a rate of 40:1.  For every one part of compressed air, the Super Air Knives can entrain 40 parts of ambient air.  With the Super Air Knives, we can generate a laminar flow to give an even force across the entire length.  So, it is easy to set the correct force for different types of liquids and viscosities. 

With the caustic solution and corrosive environment, I recommended our Super Air Knife in 316 Stainless Steel material for superior anti-corrosion qualities.  EXAIR stocks 316 stainless steel Super Air Knives in many lengths.  For this application, the width to cover this metal sheet was a bit outside our longest single air knife, which is 108” (2.7 meters).  But, EXAIR does offer a Coupling Kit as a way of making our Super Air Knives even longer as multi-unit assemblies.  We can couple the Super Air Knives together to reach across, and still keep the flow even.  For this application, I recommended model 110054SS-316, 54” (1,372 mm) and model 110072SS-316 (1,829 mm) to be joined together with our coupling kit, model 10900SS-316, to accommodate the 126” (3.2 meters) width required for the application.   

The customer decided to place one set of coupled Super Air Knives on each side of the material for the caustic bath, pickling bath, flux bath, and hot dip galvanizing bath.  They mounted them above each tank, blowing at a compound angle, in and down toward the dip tank.  The Super Air Knives would be turned on automatically only when the metal sheet was being removed from the solution.  The excess liquid is forced back into the same dipping tank the material is drawn from.  With a regulator, our customer is able to control the amount of force to get the best results without overusing the compressed air.  Another benefit they enjoyed was that as more solution is removed from the material between each bath, the less liquid that is transferred from one solution bath to the next; thus, reducing cross-contamination dramatically.

After installing Super Air Knives in their system, they started to see a vast improvement in their process.  The excess drips were removed without surface issues, and they were able to extend the life of their rinse tanks by 40%.  As an added bonus, the Super Air Knives decreased the time at each bath, improving productivity without the additional labor cost.  Less waste and faster production times are the solutions that the EXAIR Super Air Knives provide the customer.  If you have a similar application and want to discuss how we can improve your dipping process, please speak to our Application Engineers.  We’d be happy to help.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Photo: textured galvanized iron by makamuki0.  Pixabay Content License

Troubleshooting Best Practices

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

One of the things I love doing is problem-solving and troubleshooting. Problem-solving is an essential skill here at EXAIR.

Many of our products are easy to set up and install, with little to no maintenance. However, there are some instances when there can be multiple variables that can have an impact on performance. Being able to isolate these, and methodically and systematically work through each one will lead to better results, and keep your EXAIR compressed air product running longer.

First, you want to make sure that you don’t have any leaks. Checking all connections and ensuring there are no cracks or splits for the air to escape. Our Ultrasonic Leak Detector can help find these.

If you have verified that there are no leaks affecting your device, the next thing to check is the air pressure that you are operating it at. When we ask what pressure an end user is using, we often hear how much pressure they are getting out of the compressor. This is rarely the pressure that you’ll see at the point of use. Using a pressure gauge and a pipe tee at the inlet is an effective way to verify this. There are many reasons why you will experience pressure drops, including restrictive fittings, undersized lines, or improper maintenance.

This leads nicely into the next step. If you are not seeing high enough operating pressure, where are the restrictions coming from? Locating and removing any restrictive fittings, like quick connects or push-to-connect fittings is essential. Our 24″ Super Air Knife uses 69.6scfm at 80psig. A 1/2″ quick connect could throttle the air flow down to 50scfm, which would starve the Super Air Knife and hinder performance.

After eliminating any restrictive fittings, replacing any undersized lines is next on our list. Using our same example of a 24″ Super Air Knife, the minimum I.D. required for the in-feed pipe is 1/2″ for a run of 10′ or less. If the run is over 50′ we would need to go up to a 3/4″ pipe, and for over 100′ we would have to double the I.D. to 1″ in order to see the same results.

The final best practice would be to make sure the compressed air is clean and moisture free. Even the cleanest compressed air systems will accumulate contaminants over time, which can build up and clog the precisely machined EXAIR product. Ensuring that you have point-of-use filtration with a Filter Separator will keep your products running maintenance free for longer.

If you would like to discuss your application, and see if we can identify any problems that may be impacting your products’ performance, then give us a call at 1-800-903-9247. We’d love to help you get the best out of our products. 

Al Wooffitt

Application Engineer

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Photo by Kevan.  Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Super Air Knives Replace Drilled Pipe And Make EVERYTHING Better

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

A manufacturer of coated paper packaging products had a machine that used a Corona discharge to generate ozone for treatment of a 10ft (~3.05m) wide roll during the coating process. Ozone, in high enough concentrations, is harmful to breathe, so they had installed a drilled pipe to blow air across the front opening of the machine to keep the ozone inside, and limit the concentration in the operator’s space to less than 0.1 ppm. The drilled pipe was able to maintain the concentration at that level (even though it used an awful lot of compressed air, and was quite loud to boot), until other enhancements in the process allowed them to increase production. This necessitated a change in the Corona system’s power from 9kW to 14kW, and the drilled pipe’s air curtain was no longer able to maintain ozone levels in the operator’s space at a safe level.

While the air curtain from the drilled pipe was able to maintain safe ozone levels initially, it couldn’t keep up with the increase in production.

In addition to blowoff, cleaning, drying, and cooling applications, the laminar air flow of an EXAIR Super Air Knife is also particularly well suited to environmental separation. That’s a literal wall of air that’ll keep dust off sensors or lenses, prevent heat, smoke, & fumes from exiting openings in machinery, or in this case, make sure harmful gases stay inside the process boundaries so they don’t prevent a breathing hazard to personnel in the area.

After installing two, Model 110060 60″ Aluminum Super Air Knives with a Model 110900 Coupling Bracket Kit, the uninterrupted 120″ laminar air curtain was able to keep the ozone concentration consistently under 0.05 ppm…less than half their established safety limit. What could be better than increasing production AND safety?

120″ worth of EXAIR Super Air Knife made all the difference…and then some!

I’ll tell you what’s better than that: lower operating costs and noise levels. While the drilled pipe did its job prior to the change in production, it used quite a bit of compressed air to do so: with a supply pressure of 80psig, their air consumption was measured to be 496 SCFM, and the ambient noise level was 94.5dBA. That’s higher than the OSHA 1910.95(a) limit for maximum allowable noise for continuous 8-hour daily exposure.

The 120″ Super Air Knife system, by comparison, uses 348 SCFM when supplied at 80psig, which, since it operates continuously, saved them $5,200.00 per year in compressed air consumption. Now, the coating machine itself is pretty loud – even with the Super Air Knife installed, the ambient noise level in the area was still 93dBA. But the 69dBA sound level of the Super Air Knife didn’t contribute to that, in any case.

Bottom line, installation of the Super Air Knife allowed for increased production of the coating machine, lowered the concentration of ozone escaping the machine, reduced the operating cost, and even improved the sound level, if only by a small amount…but every little bit helps, right?

If you use compressed air, it’s entirely likely that engineered products can help you get the most out of your system. To find out more, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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