Tag: air nozzles

Utility Rebates – How EXAIR Products Can Save You Money!

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

We love to talk about how our intelligent compressed air products can save you money. This has been the subject of many blogs, emails and phone calls; primarily focusing on how our products will reduce your overall air consumption. This leads to lower energy costs, which over time will save you thousands of dollars. Another way you can save money is through rebate programs.

Many electrical companies offer rebates for efficient products and programs that help reduce energy consumption. The NC Clean Energy Technology Center has created a website that consolidates this information for you on their website: www.dsireusa.org.  “DSIRE is the most comprehensive source of information on incentives and policies that support renewable and energy efficiency in the United States”. Since EXAIR’s products fall into this category, rebates can be applied to the use of our products. If there is a rebate available, you will find it on this site.

It’s easy to find what rebates are available for you by selecting your state from the map on DSIRE, and then filtering down to Technology > Energy Efficiency > Industrial Equipment > Compressed air. As an example, in Michigan there is currently a rebate from Energy Smart for using Engineered Nozzles.

Once you’ve found your rebate, give us a call! We can help you determine which of our products will allow you to take advantage of it, whether it’s one of our engineered nozzles like the above example, or any of our other intelligent compressed air products.

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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Image by Robert Goerman from Pixabay

Tips for Building Your Own Blowoff System

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

One of the most common applications we help with here at EXAIR is where some form of blowoff is needed. Whether it is removing coolant, ejecting a part, or blowing away scrap and debris, we have a product that will help.

EXAIR Blowoff Systems are a combination of EXAIR air Nozzles, Mag Bases and Stay Set Hoses. The Mag Bases are available in single or dual outlets, the Stay Set Hoses come in lengths from 6″ to 36″, and we have a large selection of nozzles. The flexibility of this product comes in handy when an application requires multiple points for blow-off or requires different force values of each nozzle. Customizing allows you to fit the nozzles directly to the needs of your application.

When selecting the right solution for you, there are several things to take into consideration:
How much force do you need?
If you need a large amount of force, then you should consider our 2″ Flat Super Air Nozzle, or possibly our 2″ High Power Super Flat Air Nozzle. These can provide up to 2.2lbs of force.

Sometimes, you DO need the high force of the HP1125 2″ High Power Flat Super Air Nozzle

What area do you need to hit with the airflow?
For application where you are stripping, or sweeping with the airflow, you want to have a low angle, and direct the airflow against the motion of travel. This allows for greater time in contact with the part. If you are trying to eject a part, then having the airflow straight on may be better. Our Stay Set Hoses will allow you to point your nozzles in whatever direction you need, while the hose’s memory will hold it in position, without creeping or bending. Our Swivel Fittings can also be used to position our nozzles. They provide a firm, vibration-resistant mounting.

Are you replacing a pre-existing blow off?
If you are replacing an existing blowoff operation, then you may only need to install the nozzles, or Swivel Fittings. If there is no existing plumbing, then a Mag Base is an easy to set up solution that will attach to any magnetic surface.

Model 9042 Single Outlet Mag Base (left), 9043 Dual Outlet Mag Base (center) and 9029 Swivel Mag Base (right), and some typical uses.

Ultimately, if you’re looking for an efficient, quiet, and safe method of blowing compressed air, EXAIR has you covered with a wide variety of Intelligent Compressed Air Products to choose from. If you have questions about them, or how to mount them for optimal performance, give me a call.

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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Using the EXAIR EFC

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

We like to tout the benefits of our intelligent and efficient compressed air products. For example, our Super Air Knife entrains ambient air at a ratio of 40:1, so for a moderate amount of compressed air, you will get large volumes of air blowing against your part. But another way you can be efficient is by turning your compressed air off – or at least only turning it on when you need it. For example, if you are drying parts moving along a conveyor, turning the air off in between parts will save even more compressed air. You only need to use the air when it is necessary. This is where EXAIR’s Electronic Flow Controller, or EFC, comes in.

Our EFC is great for automating processes involving compressed air use, by turning the air flow off when it’s not needed.  In fact, not only does it provide simple on/off control to blow only when a part is “seen” by the photoelectric sensor, there are eight distinct modes to incorporate delay on or off, flicker on or off, signal on/off delay, interval, or “One-Shot,” where the sensor detects the part, delays opening the valve per the timer setting, and blows for one second. The different modes are demonstrated in this video:

We include the EFC with our Deluxe Super Air Knife Kits for the obvious synergy with the Super Air Knives’ typical applications of cooling, drying and cleaning. However, there are many other EXAIR products and applications that could benefit from the functionality of the photoelectric sensor. Take our Line Vacs, for example. If a hopper is being filled with product that is being conveyed by the Line Vac, you can use the sensor on the EFC to turn off the Line Vac. Alternatively, you could use the sensor to detect when the hopper is almost empty and turn the Line Vac on.

We have had customers use our EFC to control the flow from our Atomizing Spray Nozzles. When the sensor detects the parts being coated, the EFC turns on the compressed air supply, allowing the Air Atomizing Spray Nozzle to apply a coating. Once the part has been coated, the EFC shuts off the air supply, not only saving on compressed air, but also the liquid used to coat its parts.

Our Electronic Flow Controls can accommodate flows up to 350scfm, so they can be used in a wide variety of applications. In fact, the more air volume you control with one of these, the faster you can amass savings and the faster your return on investment! If you would like to discuss how an EFC could save you money, give me a call!

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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ROI Calculation

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

What’s in it for me? We’ve probably all asked this question at some point or another, especially when trying to justify a big change or expenditure. Is it going to be worth it? What benefit am I going to get out of it?
Here at EXAIR we are confident that there is a lot to gain from using our products. Two of the biggest benefits of our Intelligent Compressed Air Products are a reduction in noise, and a reduction in Compressed Air usage. The latter will often lead to big money savings. Many times the savings our products offer will pay for the product itself! This is where ROI calculations come in. What is my Return on Investment going to be?

So, how do you calculate your ROI? The easy answer is that you don’t have to! You can use our Air Savings Calculator to calculate your savings for you. If you know your current air consumption (in SCFM), the new air consumption (SCFM) and the cost of the product, our calculator will turn that into monetary savings, as well as the calculated payback time in days.

Another option, if you would rather not do the calculations yourself, is that you can send the item in question to our Efficiency Lab. The Efficiency Lab Testing is a free service that we offer to show you the possible savings by switching to one of our products. We will calculate the savings for you and send you the results of our findings.
The final option – my favorite by the way – is that we can do the math right here:

For a simple example of a blowoff application, I’m going to show the ROI of replacing a drilled copper pipe with an EXAIR Super Air Knife. The calculations will be as follows:

Copper Pipe (1/4”): 3x 3/32” diameter drilled holes uses 9.4scfm per hole (28.2scfm total) at 80psig.

3” Super Air Knife: uses 8.7scfm at 80psig

Calculation:

For the yearly consumption, we need to find how many minutes in a year the blowoff will be operated:

For the Copper Pipe, the yearly consumption would be:

For the 3” Super Air Knife, the yearly consumption would be:

The difference between these two:

At this point, if you know your facilities cost to generate 1,000scf, you can use that to calculate how much you would save. For this example, we will use $0.25 to generate 1,000scf, which is used by the U.S. Department of Energy to estimate costs. This gives the following yearly savings:

With an investment of $273.00 (at the time of publishing), you can calculate the time it would take to pay off the unit:

From these numbers you can see that after only 117 days the 3” Super Air Knife will have paid for itself. After that, it is all money being put towards your bottom line.

If you have any questions or want more information on EXAIR’s Air Knifes or how our products could save you money, then give us a call. We have a team of application engineers ready to answer your questions and recommend a solution for your applications.

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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