Tag: air wiper

Optimizing Your Compressed Air Usage With Engineered Products

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

The first new car I ever bought was a 1995 Ford Escort Wagon. I’ve mentioned this before in posts about preventive maintenance, the importance of proper filtration, and brand loyalty. Those blogs were primarily about my experiences with that little red wagon, but today I wanted to discuss the primary reason I bought the car in the first place.

I had a 50-mile round trip commute to work, and my old Pontiac Grand Prix with the small block V8 engine was a great ride for sure. Some quick math, however, showed that if I went with something with better gas mileage, I could save quite a bit of money on gasoline. My calculation was almost $1,000 a year, just on driving back & forth to work. After figuring in the rest of my driving for the first year, it was more like $1,400 a year.

Similar to my “upgrade” to a more fuel efficient vehicle, upgrading blowoff, cooling and drying operations using engineered compressed air products is Step #3 in EXAIR’s Six Steps To Optimizing Your Compressed Air System. We’ve assigned an order to these steps in accordance with basic good engineering practice & protocol, but it’s not necessary to follow them in any particular order. In fact, all six steps really don’t apply to every single compressed air system.

Step #3 does apply to most systems, though. I spent a fair amount of time in all sorts of industrial facilities in my previous roles, servicing industrial & chemical pumps, and almost all the time, regardless of the industry or the size of the facility, the maintenance part of the facility used air guns. However, I don’t recall ever seeing an engineered nozzle on one before I came to EXAIR. Since then, I’ve worked with a BUNCH of users to dramatically reduce compressed air consumption by replacing their cheap and inefficient air guns with EXAIR Safety Air Guns, or by retrofitting EXAIR Super Air Nozzles onto their existing air guns. We actually carry adapters to fit our Super Air Nozzles to a number of readily commercially available air guns for that very purpose.

The five families of EXAIR handheld blowoff products include VariBlast Precision & Compact, Soft Grip, Heavy Duty, SuperBlast, and TurboBlast Safety Air Guns. They’re available with a range of engineered Super Air Nozzles, Extensions, and Chip Shields.

In addition to air guns & nozzles, our Air Knives have a long history of replacing drilled pipes & pipe manifolds with inefficient nozzles used to make a curtain of air flow. The following chart details the savings you can realize from the use of a 24″ Super Air Knife instead of similar devices for a 24″ wide air curtain:

Even though an electric powered blower will use less electricity than the amount of electricity an air compressor uses to supply an engineered product like the Super Air Knife, the maintenance costs make the total cost of ownership eclipse that of the engineered Air Knife.

Our Case Study Library (registration required, but it’s free & fast) documents many real-world situations where customers worked with us to gather & publish “before/after” documentation, proving out the benefits of Step #3. I encourage you to check those out, and if you think you might have an opportunity to do a Case Study with us, we offer discounts or credit for that…give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Super Air Wipes Bring It Full Circle

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

The Super Air Wipes literally bring a full circle of converging airflow onto the surface of whatever is passed through it. That airflow can blow off, cool, clean, or dry products. A Coanda profile is designed into the body of the unit to maximize entrainment of ambient air from the upstream side as well as give the precision angle for the air to exit from and impact the target. This gives the air stream moving the target zone a 30° angle to the surface to provide a substantial shear force for debris removal. This also ensures the large volume of ambient air entrained will all travel in the correct direction and not become turbulent before impinging on the surface.

Implementing a Super Air Wipe salvaged a $30,000 job for this customer. Read all about it in our Case Study Library (registration required)

To provide ease of installation, a unique clam-shell design was engineered to provide clamp-over installation rather than traditional threading methods. This also permits quick changes in size when needed in rapid product change environments.

Gen4 Super Ion Air Wipe

To meet all the tasks at hand, the Super Air Wipes are offered in two main materials of construction. Aluminum body with brass air fittings, connected with stainless steel hardware, shim, and connecting hose for up to 4” (102mm). As well as 303 stainless steel body with stainless steel bolts, shim, the connecting hose for up to 4” (102mm) and fittings. The stainless-steel components give the units better corrosion resistance, higher temperature ratings, and more durability in harsh industrial environments.

Super Air Wipe Family Photo

EXAIR stocks the aluminum Super Air Wipes with inner diameters from 3/8” (10 mm) for wire and cables up to 11” (279mm) for large pipes and hoses. The aluminum models have a temperature rating of up to 400oF (204oC). We also stock stainless-steel models from ½” (13mm) to 4” (102mm) inner diameters, and they have a temperature range of up to 800oF (427oC). If you require different diameters or materials, we can do that as well easily.

Super Air Wipe Kit

The Super Air Wipe kits help get the most out of the air wipes. A kit will include the Super Air Wipe, a filter, a regulator, and a shim set. The filter will remove bulk liquids and debris from the compressed air to keep the performance optimal. The regulator is used to fine-tune the force provided by the Super Air Wipe. This helps to not over-use the amount of compressed air required for the job.

With a regulator, you can make fine adjustments to get the proper amount of air. For coarse adjustments, you can add shims to increase the airflow and force. They are easy to install on the Super Air Wipes to allow for applications to have more cooling, faster drying, and better removal of tough debris. For cleanliness and control, the Super Air Wipe Kits would be recommended for your application.

Robotic Welder fitted with EXAIR Super Air Wipe

With the creation of the Super Air Wipe, uniform cleaning, cooling, and blowing around the outside of parts is a simple task. You don’t have to worry about a variety of nozzles to target the circumference or a fabricated blow-off device that will waste air and take much time out of your day. A simple Super Air Wipe Kit purchase will solve the problem and keep production going. If you need help selecting the proper size or want to know what material we would recommend for your application, contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Square Peg And A Round Hole

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

We all remember the box with different shapes that toddlers play with to eventually learn shape names. Well, this also teaches some other things like fine motor skills and for some, how to work around the challenge altogether. Here at EXAIR, we like to use our products to help build skills and enable our customers to navigate the challenges at hand. Sometimes, that means fitting a square peg in a round hole.

That’s right, while we all like to think of the Super Air Wipe as a product that is only used with round wire, cable, bar, tubing, or extrusion that is round, that is not the case. Now, I know what you might be thinking, that’s a waste or how can you fit that shape. Well, the Super Air Wipes from EXAIR are offered in 11 sizes from stock in aluminum construction and 5 in stock from stainless steel. (In stock for us means they ship same day on orders received by 2:00 PM ET.) The reason we don’t only use these for round objects is the fact that once the air hits a surface it follows that surface.

The Super Air Wipes have a converging airflow and as long as the profile being passed through fits through the inner diameter and does not have undercuts then the air should attach to the surface and travel upstream of the SAW location and blow off the moisture, debris, or cool the material being fed through. This pattern of air will converge 360° to the wipe. So if the extrusion being passed through is a square shape, then the air will hit each flat, and where the corners are that air will simply combine and continue upstream.

Throughout the years I have even helped customers to use only half of a Super Air Wipe to cool or clean a part as it rides down a conveyor and use half of the wipe as a gate for the part to pass through. Another common application is to use the Super Air Wipe to protect lenses for things like measurement systems or cameras. This can be done by installing the Super Air Wipe in front of the camera or lens and blowing the air stream out away from the lens. Again, the converging flow helps to provide an air barrier to shield the lens from foreign debris or moisture.

Robotic Welder fitted with EXAIR Super Air Wipe

If you would like to see what kind of irregular shape we can help fit through a Super Air Wipe to cool down or clean it off as it is fed down a process line, contact an Application Engineer today.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Why doesn’t my “XYZ” work?

Published on by bdwagesLeave a comment
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
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Cover photo by gerralt / 25503 and licensed by Pixabay