In a previous life I worked in the metal cutting industry on machines that were all imported to the USA. Every machine we brought in had to have the air inlets changed out to match the NPT ports that most of our domestic customers had within their facilities. This simply made sense, why force someone to change an air fitting or something as simple as that to match the rest of their facility. The option we did not offer was to change all the hardware on the machine to match the rest of the SAE sized hardware and limit the number of tools their staff needed. That didn’t make sense. Well, here at EXAIR we like to do things differently.
There are several companies that I deal with here who always prefer their air inlets be different, whether it be a metric BSP thread or a larger NPT thread, maybe a global thread, or even a special fitting like a taper lock fitting. No matter the needs, as long as it will physically fit on the product, chances are we can offer the fitting that will simplify installation. Even past the installation we like to look forward to the complete ownership of our products. Once a machine is located in a facility, what other types of fasteners are used, what is the rest of the machine tooled with. When working on a machine as a maintenance person or adjusting the operation, not having to struggle with determining which Allen wrench or hex size a bolt is and risk damaging the bolt can be extremely helpful.
Most EXAIR products come from stock with standard fractional hardware. We do offer a number of products with a BSPT air inlet and they are often available with the same expediency as our other stock products, same day on orders received by 2 PM ET that are shipping within the U.S. As mentioned above, we can customize a product with the fasteners of your choice, as long as they pass our design criteria. Some of the most common fastener changes I have seen are converting a Super Air Knife to an M6-1.0 threaded bolt rather than the stock 1/4-20 fastener. There are a multitude of other requests that I recall throughout the years. Some of the most intricate are listed and explained below.
From left to right: M6-1.0 stainless steel bolt, a titanium hex-head bolt, a Hastelloy hex-head bolt, brass hex-head bolt, Kolsterized hex-head bolt, special acorn head fastener, Allen key flat-head bolt. Each of these fasteners has been used within a custom configuration to meet a specific need, whether it be simply to match the metric or SAE hardware in the rest of the machine or to meet the demands of the environment they are going into. The bottom row are, integral star washer nut, serrated safety washer, and spring washer. Each of these has, again, been requested by a customer to meet the design and safety standards they have a requirement for. These are just a sampling of the custom hardware we have used over the years to support our customer base and fill their need with product that meets their standards.
If you would like to discuss custom hardware in a stock product or even a full on custom point of use compressed air product, the Application Engineer team here is ready to help. Contact us and we will do our best to understand what your need requires and offer a solution to fit.
Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF
