Tag: dawoerner

When Two Arms Aren’t Enough

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

This morning I was chatting with my colleague Russ Bowman about taking care of kids. I was complaining about having to try and chop vegetables while holding a 1 year old in my other arm. Russ shared some perspective with me. He always took pride in what he could get done with an infant or toddler in one arm. While I was complaining, he pushed me to see what I could really get done. I thought cutting squash was pushing it. He informed me that I lack either imagination or perseverance in my dad skills. I wish his wife (or mine) had been around because, I’m pretty sure they would offer “perspective” to both of us about how much you can get done with infant in your arms. Which would be fine, Russ and I know our better halves are better than us… Thank Goodness. Otherwise, the kids would not stand a chance.
The discussion reminded me of EXAIR’s foot pedal. It is like an extra hand to control your air supply. I had a customer this week that was punching 4 mm diameter plastic circles from a part. The 4 mm diameter plastic chips built up on the machine which would lead to a housekeeping nightmare. The customer installed a 3/8″ Line Vac, model 6078, to evacuate the plastic chips after each punch. The Line Vac worked great to evacuate the chips, but running it constantly required 5.6 SCFM of compressed air. To get the job done, the Line Vac only needed to run five seconds after each punch operation, and the punch operated three times every minute. Controlling the air supply to the Line Vac to only turn on when the Line Vac was needed would save 4.2 SCFM of compressed air.

line vac drill press
Picture Model 6080 Line Vac removing chips from a drill press.

Unfortunately, the operation required two hands. One hand to position the plastic blank, one hand to actuate the punch. This meant controlling the Line Vac would need a third hand. With a foot pedal, model number 9040, though, the operator could gain additional control to operate the Line Vac only when needed. This saved 4.2 SCFM of compressed air. The foot pedal would pay for itself in 124 days. On a 3/8″ Line Vac that may not seem like much, but a foot pedal controlling a 2″ Line Vac would save 33.75 SCFM and the payback time would be 15 days.*

*Assuming 24 hour day and 250 working days per year.

A foot pedal is an excellent option, when you need that third arm. Check one out today at www.exair.com.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
@EXAIR_DW
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com

 

Intelligent Compressed Air Products: Pulling In Free Air

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment
Home of Intelligent Compressed Air Products
EXAIR is the home of Intelligent Compressed Air Products.

What is an Intelligent Compressed Air product? What makes it intelligent? Compressed air is typically a manufacturing facility’s most expensive utility. A standard cost is $0.25 per 1,000 Standard Cubic Feet (SCF) produced. Any pipe, manifold, or fitting can be modified to blow compressed air, but these homemade blow offs will be very noisy, waste a tremendous amount of compressed air and create an OSHA violation. In contrast EXAIR’s intelligent compressed air are engineered solution are quiet, use a minimal amount of compressed air and comply with OSHA safety standards.

Let’s take EXAIR Model 1100 Super Air Nozzle as an example. Connecting it to a 1/4 NPT fitting, will produce 13 ounces of force on a target when mounted twelve inches away, and use 14 SCFM of compressed air. To produce so much force using that little air, the Super Air Nozzle must be precisely designed and manufactured to maximize the entrainment of ambient air.

With the air nozzle we use compressed air to induce a primary air flow. This primary air flow is a high velocity jet of air that create low pressure area around the primary airflow entraining the ambient or free air. These air streams combine past the tip of the nozzle creating a powerful blast of air. The Super Air Nozzle can entrain air up to a ratio of 25 parts of ambient air moved for every 1 part of compressed air.  All of our Super Air Nozzle create this level of air entrainment.

AirflowAnimation
EXAIR Super Air Nozzle entrains ambient air up to a 25:1 ratio

In addition to entraining a significant amount of air, the Super Air Nozzle also reduces the noise level. Most homemade nozzles are not well constructed so, the hole(s) that allow the air to escape may have sharp jagged edge which will induce noise or turbulence. Even commercial nozzles with cross drill holes create a tremendous amount of wind shear which leads to an ear splitting compressed air squeal. The smooth design of the Super Air Nozzle creates a laminar flow of air that reduces the noise of the nozzle to 74 dBA. For reference a 1/4″ open tube can easily create noise levels over 100 dBA. Using a compressed air nozzle, can greatly reduce the amount of noise in and around your shop.

Finally, EXAIR Super Air Nozzle complies with OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.242, which requires that all nozzles that use compressed air over 30 PSIG must provide a point of relief in case the nozzle is dead ended. EXAIR Super Air Nozzle uses multiple orifices that are recessed, so that the air always has a path of escape. Many homemade nozzles do not have any provision to protect from dead ending, which means they do not comply with the OSHA standard.

EXAIR Super Air Nozzles are an important upgrade from a homemade nozzle and many times an upgrade for a commercial nozzle, because they entrain ambient air, reduce noise level, and comply with OSHA regulation.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
@EXAIR_DW
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com

EXAIR Webinar: Simple Steps for Big Savings

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment
EXAIRvOpenpipe_200psqRed
EXAIR Super Air Nozzle Versus and Open Blow off

EXAIR will present a free webinar hosted by Design World September 15th, 2015 at 2 pm EDT ( UTC/GMT -4 hours). I will be presenting the webinar about Intelligent Compressed Air Products. What do we mean by Intelligent Products? We are referencing nozzles that are quiet, safe, and efficient. They are engineered and manufactured to improve efficiency and limit compressed air use by entraining ambient air. The smooth lines of these nozzles produce laminar flow that reduces wind shear creating a powerful quiet blow off.

The focus of the webinar will be to quantify the cost of homemade blow offs and the return on investment of upgrading these simple installations to an engineered solution. We will base our calculations on a 20 HP Air Compressor, an 1100 Super Air Nozzle, a 1/4 Open Copper tube, and $0.08 per kWH electricity cost.

In addition to the cost of compressed air, we will cover two safety issues. First, we will cover dead end pressure. OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.242(b) limits the dead end pressure to less than 30 PSIG. We will talk about what type of nozzles do not comply with this regulation, and how engineered nozzles are designed to meet this requirement. Second, we will talk about the noise exposure standard and the effects noise will have on your facility.

The main focus of the presentation will be cost of compressed air blow offs, noise, and important OSHA standards for compressed air. We will also touch on a variety of other compressed air topics. The presentation will be sponsored by EXAIR with 31 years of end-use compressed air product manufacturing and application experience.

CLICK TO REGISTER HERE

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
@EXAIR_DW
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com

Wood Veneer Pressing Using Venturi Technology

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

We get some odd calls at EXAIR. Selling factory direct to the end-user means we field calls from all types of people. One these calls turned into a unique and great application.

An amateur woodworker called in looking for a vacuum pump or vacuum generator in order to glue up wooden veneers into complex shapes. This was an application I had not yet assisted anyone with and needed further investigation to understand the process. I found the video below showing the basic mechanisms for the vacuum bag pressing of wooden veneers.

EXAIR vacuum generators, or E-Vacs, are perfect for this application. The E-Vacs, are compressed air powered venturis that  provide vacuum up to 27″ of mercury. In this application once the vacuum is pulled a there is no air flow, so a non-porous vacuum generator is perfect. The customer was able to use our 810002 2 SCFM non-porous vacuum generator, a vacuum switch, and a solenoid to create a flexible veneer press in his own shop. I was immediately struck by how effective this method would be. It is commonly used in for flat pieces, but I could see it being used to form convex curves for artistic pieces.

Here is a time lapse video of a similar process which also features a (helpful?) dog. There are not as many details in this video but it does show some steps not shown in the above video. Plus, it has a dog, and I like dogs.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss an application, please contact EXAIR.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
1-800-903-9247  OR  513-671-3322 outside of USA and Canada
@EXAIR_DW
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com