Buy one, get one free is a phrase many of us are familiar with. Most of the time it is a good thing; we all like free stuff. What would you say to buy one, get 30 free? Or even 40 free? That’s not far off how our Air Knives perform. They entrain large volumes of ambient air, so for every 1 SCFM of compressed air you are paying for, you are getting 30–40 SCFM of additional free ambient entrained air.
So how are our Air Knives able to do this? We explain this phenomenon in more detail in this blog here, but in summary, a Super Air Knife takes advantage of the Venturi Effect. Named after Giovanni Venturi, who found out that when you increase the speed of a fluid through an orifice, the surrounding fluid will move along with it. This creates a region of low pressure, and the faster the speed, the lower the pressure. With low pressure, the air around rushes in to fill that gap and join the airstream. The quantity of ambient air that gets ‘pulled’ into the airstream is entrained air, or free air.
The engineered surface of the Super Air Knife is designed to minimize as much loss in air speed as possible, which maximizes the amount of free air that is being entrained. The ratio between free air and compressed air used is called the amplification ratio. Super Air Knives have an amplification ratio of 40:1, with our Standard Air Knives having an amplification ratio of 30:1. For comparison, a pipe with holes drilled will have an amplification ratio of between 2:1 and 5:1. As you can see, with a Super Air Knife you are getting a much better deal on your compressed air usage.
This additional free air adds more mass, which allows the Super Air Knife to do more work. You will get a harder hitting force than a comparable product while using less compressed air. This makes Super Air Knives especially good for cooling and drying applications, where moving large volumes of air is ideal.
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.
It’s not just our Air Knives that take advantage of the Venturi effect to produce large amplification ratios. Many of our products are designed with efficiency in mind, including our Air Amplifiers, Air Wipes, and Air Nozzles and Jets, to name a few. If you would like to discuss how an EXAIR engineered compressed air product can amplify your process, then give us a call!
One could make a good point about “The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” being right now because…well, the song just says so, right? I can get on board with that, because I’m the world’s biggest sucker for Christmas music:
Of course, that song was used in one of my favorite ad campaigns of all time to describe a season that started a few months earlier:
But I’m going to have to go with “right now” not only for the Christmas music, but for my personal favorite EXAIR seasonal promotion:
Right now, through the end of the year, EXAIR will give you a Safety Air Gun with any Super Air Knife purchase. Not only do you get THE most efficient and quietest compressed air blowing product on the market today (we have data to back that up from a wide variety of products & devices that customers have sent in for Efficiency Lab testing), we’re going to sweeten the deal with free stuff.
First, let’s talk about the Super Air Knives:
They come in lengths from 3″ to 9ft. No matter how small, or big, your blowoff needs are, we’ve got you covered. If you need something longer than 9ft, they can be coupled together for a continuous, laminar airflow curtain as long as you need it to be.
Air Knife Coupling Bracket Kit
We make them in low cost, lightweight aluminum, tough & corrosion resistant Type 303 Stainless Steel, even tougher & more corrosion resistant Type 316 Stainless Steel, and PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) thermoplastic with Hastelloy hardware & PTFE shims for the highest level of corrosion resistance available.
PVDF Super Air Knife Kits include the Air Knife itself (PVDF body, Hastelloy C-276 hardware, and PTFE Shims,) a PTFE Shim Set, an Automatic Drain Filter Separator, and Pressure Regulator.
They’re efficient and quiet — for the same reason. See, the compressed air supply exits through a precise, narrow slot between the Cap & Body, which is precision finished, generating a 40:1 entrainment ratio. That means that for every SCFM of compressed air that the Super Air Knife uses, it entrains 40 SCFM of air from the surrounding environment…THAT’S efficiency. In doing so, that entrained air forms a low velocity boundary layer around the powerful, high velocity primary air stream. This layer serves to attenuate the sound level of that hard-hitting curtain of air, resulting in a sound level of only 69dBA.
And, if you order before 12/31/2025, we’ll throw in a FREE EXAIR Soft Grip Safety Air Gun, fitted with a Super Air Nozzle. If you’re using a loud, inefficient air gun for handheld blowoff, you really need to try one of these. They use the primary compressed air stream to entrain ‘free’ air from the surrounding environment as well, which generates a low velocity boundary layer for sound reduction too. The Super Air Nozzle is well suited for a wide range of industrial blowoff applications, and the Soft Grip Safety Air Gun is ideal for hours of continuous use without fatigue.
EXAIR Super Air Nozzles entrain an enormous amount of air from the surrounding environment, making them efficient, and quiet.
Need something right away? EXAIR has you covered there too: all of these (and pretty much any of our other Intelligent Compressed Air Products) are on the shelf and ready to ship, same day, with orders received by 2pm EST. If you’ve got a blowoff application that you’d like to find a safe, quiet, and efficient solution for, we can help…give me a call.
Russ Bowman, CCASS
Application Engineer Visit us on the Web Follow me on Twitter Like us on Facebook
Here at EXAIR we are very proud of our Intelligent Compressed Air Products. We have spent a lot of time discussing their many benefits, including their efficiency, the fact that many have no moving parts, little to no maintenance, meeting or exceeding OSHA safety standards for noise or dead end pressure. One thing we don’t talk as much about is the accessories that go along with and complement our products. Several of these accessory items are the reason why our compressed air products can boast about having little to no maintenance, or reduced noise levels. In this blog I want to cover some of these unsung heroes.
From left to right, a few value-added accessories for your Vortex Tube: Hot Muffler, Cold Muffler, Automatic Drain Filter Separator, Oil Removal Filter, and Solenoid Valve/Thermostat Kit.
Some of the most popular accessories we offer are our compressed airFilters andRegulators. We suggest using these with all our products (or even with ones that aren’t ours).
The Filter Separator is designed to remove moisture, dirt, and rust from your compressed air system. The 5-micron filter element ensures that contaminants don’t clog or harm your compressed air equipment.
An Oil Removal Filter (which should always be installed after our Filter Separator) provides even more precise filtration by getting rid of oil and solid particles with a 0.03-micron element.
Our Pressure Regulators let you choose the operating pressure. At EXAIR, we always advise running at the lowest pressure necessary to complete the task. Pressure Regulators help you achieve that, reducing unnecessary air usage and fine-tuning the performance of EXAIR products for your specific application.
We have some accessories designed specifically for certain products. For our Line Vacs, there’s the Line Vac Hose. You can also find Thermostats and Solenoid Valves that work great with our Cabinet Coolers, and if you’re using Vortex Tubes, we suggest checking out our Mufflers.
When it comes to our Air Knives, we offer a variety of fantastic options:
If your project needs something longer than our stock Air Knives, or if you want to manage different sections of the air flow separately, our Coupling Bracket Kits are ideal.
And if you want to simplify the plumbing for your Air Knife, don’t miss our Air Knife Plumbing Kits. They’re suitable for all Air Knives that are longer than 24 inches.
If you’re looking for plumbing options, we’ve got a range of compressed air hoses and fittings that will simplify things for you.
Our Coiled Hoses work great with our Safety Air Guns, giving you more freedom of movement while you work.
No matter what your application requires or the product you need, we’ve got a variety of complementary accessory products that will simplify installation and adjustments. If you have any questions about these or any other EXAIR products, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
Manufacturers in semiconductor assembly and PCB production face strict cleanliness, throughput, and thermal-control requirements. EXAIRs compressed-air products, specifically our Air Knives and Vortex Tubes, and air amplifiers are proven, compact, and energy-efficient tools for precise blow-off, controlled cooling and heating for spot thermal conditioning and fume extraction. This Blog explains how EXAIR Super Air Knives and Vortex Tubes and Air Amplifiers address three common production needs:
Drying and particulate removal during lead frame processing with air knives.
Localized cooling/heating for functional PCB testing using Vortex Tubes.
Fume extraction during etching, cleaning and plating processes
I’ll cover technical fit, typical performance characteristics, and measurement/ROI considerations so engineers and plant managers can evaluate and implement these solutions.
Intellistat Ion Air Nozzle in clean room, cleaning microchip parts before installation.
Super Air Knife and Success in the semiconductor lead frame manufacturing process.
Typical use cases
Removing rinse water or flux residues after cleaning
Blowing off foreign matter, over spray, or machining debris prior to plating or die bonding.
Drying prior to molding or coating operations.
Static-assisted blow-off when combined with static eliminating product for electrostatically attracted particles.
Uniform Laminar Sheet of air: delivers consistent, even blow-off across the width of a lead frame, reducing localized hot spots or mechanical damage.
Adjustable force and flow: adjusting air pressure and shim size allow you to control force and volume so fragile wires or plated surfaces aren’t damaged.
Entrainment & Efficiency: The knives are engineered so they entrain ambient air, increasing total developed flow and reducing compressed-air consumption compared to open pipes.
Vortex Tubes for functional PCB testing / burn-in and thermal cycling
During in-line or bench functional testing, specific components or integrated circuits may overheat or require temperature conditioning to verify performance at the full range of the rated temperature specifications. Vortex Tubes give fast, localized cooling (or heating) without coolant loops, chillers, or plumbing intricacy. Subjecting devices to burn-in and thermal cycling stress helps products enter the field with confidence there will not be any preventable failures. Normally, environmental chambers are used for burn-in processes, but vortex tubes can help facilitate localized thermal ramps, corner stressing, or temporary additional cooling/heating when size, cost or availability of a full environmental chamber isn’t feasible.
Instant cold/hot air from regular compressed air: no refrigeration system or refrigeration cycle; instantaneous on/off.
No moving parts: high reliability and low maintenance for test fixtures.
Local spot conditioning: focus cooling on integrated circuits or other small areas without cooling the entire board or fixture.
Adjustable cold fraction: Vortex tubes can be tuned via the control valve to trade flow vs. temperature drop to meet testing conditions.
Cooling or Heating with the Vortex Tube
Air Amplifiers for fume extraction and partial heat control during etching, cleaning and plating processes.
In semiconductor lead frame manufacturing, maintaining clean, particle-free environments is essential to ensure consistent product quality and process reliability. Processes such as flux cleaning, plating, molding, and soldering generate vapors, fumes, and fine particulates that can contaminate delicate components or compromise yields. EXAIR’s Super Air Amplifier provides an efficient, quiet, and maintenance-free solution for capturing and removing fumes, vapors, and airborne contaminants from sensitive production areas.
Compressed-air energy reduction (compared to previous blow-offs) = kW savings (U.S. Department of Energy offers a benchmark of $0.25 per 1,000 SCF).
Tangible benefits: throughput improvement, energy savings, reduced capital cost (vs. chillers/chambers), lower maintenance and smaller footprint.
Conclusion
EXAIR Super Air Knives, Vortex Tubes and air amplifiers are compact, reliable, and flexible products that can improve cleanliness, thermal testing, and throughput in semiconductor processes.
Select a process you think could be helped with an air knife, Vortex Tube or an air amplifier and take advantage of our 30-day money-back guarantee.
Validate throughput and quality improvements and calculate ROI.
Rollout with appropriate controls, filtration, and operator training.
If you think any of our products can help you in your process, please reach out. We have a team of application engineers here M-F to answer your questions!
