Tag: air knife nozzle

Step 3: Upgrade Your Blow off, Cooling, and Drying Operations

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

In the world of manufacturing, compressed air is often called the “fourth utility.” It’s essential, but it’s also expensive to produce. If you’re following the Six Steps to Optimize Your Compressed Air System, Step 3 is where you stop the bleeding.

Step 3, dear reader, is the subject of today’s blog.

Upgrading your blow-off, cooling, and drying operations from “homegrown” solutions to engineered products is one of the fastest ways to slash energy costs and improve plant safety.

The Problem with “In-House” Solutions

Many plants rely on makeshift blow-off devices: crimped copper tubes, pipes with drilled holes, or basic air nozzles found at a hardware store. While they seem “free” or cheap, they are incredibly inefficient.

  • High Air Consumption: They lack the physics to move air efficiently, requiring massive volumes of compressed air to do the job.
  • Dangerous Noise Levels: Drilled pipes produce a high-pitched shear that often exceeds OSHA noise exposure limits.
  • Safety Hazards: If a pipe or open tube is dead-ended against skin, it can lead to serious injury or air embolism.

The Engineered Solution: EXAIR Technology

This is where EXAIR engineered compressed air products change the game. Unlike a standard pipe, EXAIR products use the Coanda effect to “entrain” the surrounding room air. For every part of compressed air used, an EXAIR nozzle or air knife pulls in 30 to 40 parts of “free” ambient air.

EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products such as (left to right) the Air Wipe, Super Air Knife, Super Air Nozzle, and Air Amplifier are engineered to entrain enormous amounts of air from the surrounding environment.

If you are drying a conveyor belt or cleaning wide sheets of material, a drilled pipe is a money pit. An EXAIR Super Air Knife provides a high-velocity, uniform sheet of air across the entire surface. It’s quiet (around 69 dBA for most applications) and reduces air consumption by up to 80% compared to open headers.

For targeted blow-off or part ejection, Super Air Nozzles replace open tubes and cheap nozzles. They provide a forceful, concentrated stream of air while meeting OSHA requirements for skin pressure and noise. You get more “push” for significantly less “psi.”

Step 3 isn’t just about blowing air; it’s about optimizing how air manages temperature and waste. From Vortex Tubes that provide spot cooling without refrigerants to Air Amplifiers for smoke and fume removal, these tools ensure you aren’t overworking your compressors for simple tasks.

The Bottom Line

Upgrading to EXAIR engineered products isn’t just a maintenance fix; it’s a financial strategy. Most facilities see a return on investment (ROI) in just weeks through reduced energy bills.

By replacing inefficient, loud, and dangerous blow-off methods with engineered solutions, you’re not just optimizing your compressed air—you’re creating a quieter, safer, and more profitable shop floor.

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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Twitter: @EXAIR_AW

Changing a Shim on a PVDF Super Air Knife

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

Our Super Air Knives are one of our most popular products, and with good reason. They are quiet, efficient, and versatile. We offer them in a wide array of stock lengths, ranging from 3″ to 108″, and in several stock materials — aluminum, stainless steel, both 303 and 316, as well as PVDF.

All Super Air Knives come with a 0.002″ shim installed that sets the gap thickness, which determines the force and flow they will produce. When combined with our shim sets, you can change or stack shims to put the Super Air Knife into a whole new performance band, adding to their versatility.

Changing shims in our aluminum and stainless steel Super Air Knives couldn’t be easier. Loosen the screws to remove the cap from the body, add or replace the shim, and tighten the cap screws to 7.5ft-lbs. For our PVDF Knives, we have to take a different approach. Due to the softer nature of the material, the PVDF Super Air Knife needs to be ‘tuned’ to achieve the desired airflow. In this video blog, I walk you through the steps involved in changing a PVDF Super Air Knife shim.

If you would like to talk to an Application Engineer to discuss your Air Knife application, give me a call!

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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Twitter: @EXAIR_AW

Utilizing EXAIR Accessories

Published on by jasonkirbyLeave a comment
Accessories

At EXAIR, we take great pride in our Intelligent Compressed Air Products, which are renowned for their efficiency and minimal maintenance requirements, thanks to their design featuring few or no moving parts. While we often highlight these advantages, we also do not want to overlook the importance of the accompanying accessories that enhance our products’ performance. These accessories play a crucial role in ensuring our compressed air solutions maintain their low maintenance and reduced noise levels, further solidifying their compliance with OSHA safety standards.

Compressed air filters and regulators are among the most essential accessories we offer, and we highly recommend their use with all our products, as well as with other brands. The Filter Separator effectively eliminates water, dirt, and rust from your compressed air system, while the 5-micron filter element prevents contaminants from clogging or damaging connected equipment. For more precise and additional filtration, an Oil Removal Filter should be installed downstream of the Filter Separator; it utilizes a 0.03-micron element to remove oil and solid particles. Our Pressure Regulators allow you to set the desired operating pressure, and we advise maintaining the minimum pressure necessary for optimal performance. This not only conserves air but also fine-tunes the efficiency of EXAIR products in various applications.

Good engineering practice calls for point of use filtration and moisture removal, such as that provided by EXAIR Filter Separators.
The Thermostat’s leads (left) are spliced into the Solenoid Valve’s ‘hot’ lead (bottom right), which essentially acts as the automatic temperature controlled ‘on/off’ switch for the Cabinet Cooler System. NEMA 4/4X versions include mounting hardware (top right).

We offer specialized accessories designed to enhance the performance of some of our products. For instance, our Line Vacs are complemented by the Line Vac Hose, while our Cabinet Coolers can be paired with Thermostats and Solenoid Valves. Additionally, we recommend Mufflers for optimal use with our Vortex Tubes. When it comes to our Air Knives, we provide several excellent options. The Universal Air Knife Mounting System offers a straightforward and dependable solution for mounting. For applications requiring longer knives or independent control of airflow sections, our Coupling Bracket Kits are ideal. Lastly, our Air Knife Plumbing Kits simplify the plumbing process for Air Knives exceeding 24 inches in length.

For those looking to connect Intelligent Compressed Air Products, we offer a range of compressed air hoses and fittings designed to enhance the convenience of installation. Coiled Hoses are an excellent match for our Safety Air Guns, providing greater mobility during operation. Additionally, our Compressed Air Hoses are frequently utilized with our Industrial Housekeeping products, ensuring that both the drum and dolly have the necessary reach for effective use.

Model 9256 6″ Stay Set Hose

If you are looking for an effective solution to mount or position your Air Nozzles, consider our Magnetic Bases, Stay Set Hoses, and Swivel Fittings, which can be combined to create a comprehensive setup.

If you have questions about our accessories, or anything regarding EXAIR and our products, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Jason Kirby
Application Engineer
Email: jasonkirby@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jk

Replacing a Drilled Pipe for a Rubber Sheet Manufacturer

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

We received a call about an application to remove water from the surface of rubber sheets.  The reason for the call was because they were using a drilled pipe. It was loud and not removing an adequate amount of water.  (Reference the photo below).  EXAIR comes across this quite a bit.  A drilled pipe has turbulent flow which causes loud noises, ineffective blowing, and wastes compressed air.  With our Super Air Knives, we can create a stronger force as the airstream is laminar.  With the laminar flow, they are also quiet.  For example, our Super Air Knives have a noise level of only 71 dBA at 80 PSIG.  Also, since all of the air volume is traveling in the same direction, the liquid water will flow away from the airstream. 

The rubber sheet was 1200 mm wide, and I recommended a model 110248 48” (1,219 mm) Aluminum Super Air Knife Kit.  The kit includes the Super Air Knife, a filter, a regulator, and a shim set.  The filter removes the debris and water from the compressed air line to optimize the performance of the air knife as well as keep your product clean.  The regulator is used to make the “fine” adjustment to the blowing force while the shim set is used as the “coarse” adjustment.  Now they could reduce the inlet pressure to not overuse the compressed air and to get the proper removal of water from the sheet.  And with the 40:1 amplification ratio, the Super Air Knife will bring in 40 parts of ambient air to every part of compressed air, saving them a lot of money. 

After installation, the customer contacted me again and mentioned that they thought the performance would be better.  They sent me a photo of the setup.  (Reference below).  I noticed that they mounted the Super Air Knife as they did with the drilled pipe.  They had the Super Air Knife blowing perpendicular to the surface, which is not optimal.  I sent them the following setup points to help. 

Contact time is effectively the space in which the target is located within the airstream.  The longer the contact time, the more effective the Air Knife is at removing contamination (water in this case).   When customers install EXAIR Super Air Knives, they can have a tendency to install them incorrectly, reducing their performance capability.  In the photo above, you can see that the Super Air Knife is at 90 degrees to the surface of target travel, reducing contact time to a minimal value.  The following suggestions are how we would advise customers to mount our equipment to get the most effectiveness within their operation.

  1. Angle – EXAIR machines a chamfer on the cap of the Super Air Knife as a starting point.  You want to have the chamfer parallel with the target line.  This will create an air flow angle at about 45 degrees.  This angle will increase the contact area and contact time, which is very beneficial for removing debris and/or heat. (Note: this would indicate that the cap is mounted nearest to the surface being treated. 
  2. Distance — For optimum performance, the Air Knife should be between 3” (76mm) to 12” (305mm) from the target.  If the Super Air Knife is too close, the amplification ratio cannot propagate and the force is reduced.  If you are too far from the target surface, the air pattern will start to change, causing the velocity and force to decrease, resulting in less effective blowing action. 
  3. Counter-Flow — The direction of the air flow should be blowing against the target surface movement, in what we term a counter-flow direction.  Example: if the target parts are moving from left to right on a conveyor, you want the Air Knife to blow from right to left.  This will allow the contamination to be blown back away from the cleaned surfaces into the direction it came from, and it will increase the impact force to remove contamination, i.e. a head-on collision vs. a rear-end collision.

With these few simple steps, this customer was able to maximize the performance of their EXAIR Super Air Knife.  The sheets were dried through improved technology, efficiency, and correct positioning.  If you are still using antiquated products for blow-off, and you wish to improve your process with quiet, safe, and efficient products, an Application Engineer at EXAIR can assist you. 

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