Okay, I’ll admit that I am not the biggest sports fan, however, I will support hometown teams when it comes down to it. I recently found out that at the end of 2023, the Cincinnati Reds signed Jeimer Candelario for a decent amount of money. Several article headlines here in town noted how he is a switch-hitting infielder. I always go back to the fact that Pete Rose, one of my childhood favorite baseball players, was a switch hitter and rather good at it.
1 – Pete Rose Statue
In Pete’s playing days, it wasn’t something that was focused on like today. Many of the articles nowadays will break down all the data to determine which way the player performs better. Still, no matter what the data says, I’m sure it throws even a professional pitcher for a loop when someone swaps sides of the plate during an at-bat. The good news is, while Pete may be one of the bigger names in history for baseball, EXAIR is working to become one of the biggest names in industrial point-of-use compressed air-powered vacuums, and we are doing so with our switch-hitter, the EasySwitch Wet/Dry Vac.
The EasySwitch is the first dual-purpose vacuum that EXAIR has designed and sold in the 40 years we have been around. The best part is that the EasySwitch can do both liquid and solids equally well and comes with some great options between the basic, deluxe, and premium kits. On top, the systems are offered with either a general-purpose cartridge filter or a HEPA-rated filter which can be taken out and placed in without the use of tools and within 10 seconds to allow mode change from liquid to dry quickly and easily. This means you can easily go from a hard-hitting dry vacuum to a forceful liquid vacuum that can easily pull up to 210″ of water column in suction mode and has a flow rate of 36 gallons per minute. Once the drum is full of liquid, the liquid shutoff will engage and the lid can easily be swapped for an empty container if needed.
This versatility makes it a powerful tool in almost any production environment that may encounter liquid or dry material spills or even cleaning in general. If you want to see how we can help you sweep up your housekeeping challenges, contact an Application Engineer today, and we will do our best to knock it out of the park.
Here at EXAIR we are very proud of our Intelligent Compressed Air Products. We can spend a lot of time talking about our favorites (mine is the Vortex Tube). We have written many blogs about the advantages – 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 are the accessories that go along with and complement our products.
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 commonly used accessories are our compressed air Filters and Regulators. We would recommend the use of these with all of our products (or even with products that aren’t even ours). The Filter Separator will remove water, dirt and rust from your compressed air system. The 5-micron filter element will keep contaminants from plugging or damaging your compressed air product. An Oil Removal Filter (always placed downstream of our Filter Separator) will provide even finer filtration by removing oil and solid particulate using a 0.03-micron element. Our Pressure Regulators will enable you to select the operating pressure. At EXAIR we always recommend operating at the minimum pressure required to get the job done. Pressure Regulators allow you to do that, saving on unnecessary air consumption and allowing for dialing in the performance of EXAIR products within an application.
For some of our products, we have accessories made specifically for them. For use with our Line Vacs we have Line Vac Hose. We have Thermostats and Solenoid Valves to pair with our Cabinet Coolers, and for our Vortex Tubes we would recommend our Mufflers. For our Air Knives we have several great offerings: If you need an easy and reliable way to mount your Air Knife, then our Universal Air Knife Mounting System is what you are looking for. If your application requires something longer than our stock Knives, or perhaps you need to control certain sections of the air flow independently, then our Coupling Bracket Kits are the perfect fit. If you want to make plumbing your Air Knife easy, take a look at our Air Knife Plumbing Kits. They can be used for all Air Knives longer than 24″.
If you need to plumb many of our other Intelligent Compressed Air Products, then we have a selection of compressed air hoses and fittings that will make life easier. Our Coiled Hoses pair well with our Safety Air Guns, allowing you to move more freely while operating. Our Compressed Air Hoses are commonly used with our Industrial Housekeeping products to give the drum and dolly the reach needed.
Whatever your application’s need is, or the product you’re looking for, we certainly have a range of complimentary accessory products that will make installation and adjustment easier. If you have any questions about these, or any other EXAIR product, feel free to contact us.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to explaining how our products work, a video may be worth even more. EXAIR has an extensive video library ranging from quick product overviews, to in-depth, step-by-step guides on how to perform maintenance. If there is an application you’re working through, we likely have a video on it!
I find myself using these videos on a daily basis to help explain or demonstrate a particular aspect of an EXAIR product to a customer. It is an invaluable resource for me in my day to day life, and the best part is it is free and available for you 24/7.
You will find many of our videos under the ‘Resources’ tab at the top of our website www.EXAIR.com. From here you can select a product category. If you need to know how to change the shim in a Super Air Knife, or how to increase the conveyance of a Line Vac, you will find all these videos and many more organized here.
Videos on our Industrial Housekeeping products are particularly useful, as preventive maintenance is an important part of keeping them operating like new. Our video on “How to Troubleshoot Leaks with the Chip Trapper Vac” walks you through all the necessary steps to find and fix any leaks, as well as providing part numbers if replacement parts may be needed.
Another great resource is our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@exaircorporation. As well as product overviews and demonstrations, you will also find non-product related videos, like “How to Use EXAIR’s Cabinet Cooler® System Calculator”, or “Six Steps: How to Optimize Your Compressed Air System”.
We also include video demonstrations in our blogs. If there is a topic you are interested in, you can search our blog. We may well have a video there as well!
Ultimately, we want to make it as simple and easy as possible to use and maintain our products. If you would like to discuss your application, feel free to contact us.
Reversible Drum Vac (left) and Chip Vac (right) – two EXAIR Industrial Vacuums
When selecting a vacuum, you want to take into account a variety of things other than the purchase price. You should consider reliability, safety, and the total cost of ownership. I had a customer contact me about our Chip Vac System. They were currently using an electric vacuum to clean up debris around their machine shop. I gave them the pros of using the Chip Vac System as compared to electric vacuums. They thought that it was too much money as compared to the electric version. In less than 6 months, this same customer contacted me again to purchase the Chip Vac System, as they had gone through two more electric vacuums in that time. I would like to share some of the features and benefits that I shared with the customer above to illustrate how the EXAIR Industrial Housekeeping Products are better than electric vacuums that you could purchase.
1. Reliability: The EXAIR venturi-type vacuum systems do not have any moving parts that can wear; so, they will last for a long time. We use compressed air to generate a powerful vacuum to pick up liquids and debris. We do not use electric motors with bearings that could lock up and fail. EXAIR offers different materials for different applications, like the heavy-duty version, which uses an abrasion-resistant material for sandblasting, glass, and garnet.
2. Safety: We cover two areas in this field. The first is the potential hazard of liquids and electricity. Our vacuums only use compressed air to generate a vacuum. Even though EXAIR products are not certified to be used with explosive materials, we are still able to remove the shock hazard for users when operating electric vacuums for liquids. The second safety concern is noise. Electric vacuums can be very loud. And when the motor bearings start to fail, they can become even louder. Loud noises can become an OSHA violation and may require hearing protection. With the EXAIR industrial vacuums, we are near 83 dBA in sound during operations.
3. Total Cost of Ownership: It is easy to run to your nearest hardware store to purchase a vacuum for your facility. The problem, like with the customer above, is that you will have downtime, multiple purchases, and frustration when using inexpensive electric vacuums. You may decide to go with a bit more expensive electric unit, only to find that it is extremely noisy. The total cost of ownership takes into account the safety, reliability, and purchase price over the years of operation.
EXAIR offers a wide range of packages and categories in our Industrial Housekeeping Products. Here is a short guide to the pneumatic vacuums that we manufacture.
EasySwitch® Wet-Dry Vac: Our newest vacuum line that can be used for both wet and dry materials. They come with a standard and a HEPA filter to contain the dry material inside the 55-gallon drum. The patent-pending lid has quick and easy access to remove or add the filter without tools or removing the lid. So, transitioning from a dusty to a liquid cleanup is quick and easy.
Chip Vac™ System: Like the name states, it is a great vacuum for cleaning up chips from a machining process. The vacuum generator uses a small amount of compressed air to create a powerful vacuum to remove the chips from the process or from the machine. We offer 5-gallon, 30-gallon, 55-gallon, and 110-gallon drum sizes. The material can be stored for recycling.
Heavy Duty Dry Vac™ Systems: A “big brother” to the Chip Vac System, it can handle heavy items like sandblasting material, garnet, sand, steel, etc. The vacuum generator is made from an abrasion-resistant, hardened material that can resist wear from these types of materials.
Heavy Duty HEPA Vac™ Systems: This vacuum uses the same vacuum generator as the Heavy Duty Dry Vac, but we replace the filter with a HEPA media. This media stands for High Efficiency Particle Air filter, which can remove particles down to 0.3 micron at a rate of 99.97%. So, if the material is very small and fine, this vacuum will keep the material inside the drum and not back into the atmosphere.
Chip Trapper Cut Away
Chip Trapper™ System: Designed and used by EXAIR. We are able to clean and change out the coolant system within our CNC machines quickly. Time is money, and when a CNC machine is not running, it is not making money. The Chip Trapper has a filtration system to clean the coolant from swarf and tramp oil. By using compressed air, we are able to aerate the coolant, which reduces bacterial growth and extends the life of your coolant. With a switch of a lever, you can return the fresh, clean coolant back into the sump. We offer different micron ratings with the filter bags to accommodate the type of CNC machine and fluid “cleanliness” required.
High Lift Chip Trapper™ System: Like its cousin above, it has a stronger vacuum generator to move thicker materials or retrieve coolant from sumps below floor level. It can move fluids up to 15 feet (4.5 meters). It will come with a longer vacuum hose to reach those distances.
Reversible Drum Vac™ System: This system is a great tool for transferring liquids. It has a two-way pump to bring the liquid into a 5-gallon, 30-gallon, 55-gallon, or 110-gallon drum, and with a turn of a knob, you can discharge the liquid from the drum. It has a safety valve for the drum and a shut-off valve to prevent overfilling. They can be used with closed-top or open-top steel drums, and they can fill a 55-gallon drum in 90 seconds.
High Lift Reversible Drum Vac™ System: Like its cousin above, it has a stronger vacuum to lift liquid from a farther distance or for fluids with viscosities up to 1400 CPS. It does come with a longer vacuum hose, which is great for any slip hazards that may occur. We only offer the 30-Gallon, 55-Gallon, and 110-Gallon versions.
Vac-u-Gun™: This is a hand-held vacuum system that works great for small jobs. The generator can be switched from a vacuum collection system to a blow-off system. In vacuum applications, we have a transfer hose to move material or a filter bag to capture debris. Or you can switch the generator around to make it a blow-off system to clean material from tables, electrical panels, or parts.
Deep Hole Vac-u-Gun™: EXAIR modified the Vac-u-Gun to do a unique job, clean out chips from blind holes and hidden contours. We blow a small amount of compressed air through a tube at the same time that we vacuum to draw and extract chips. We use a vacuum tube to help move the loose debris into a filter bag.
All the vacuums above only use compressed air for a reason. They may seem a bit “pricey” to some, but you will not be disappointed. These vacuums are built and designed for rugged industrial use with longevity, safety, and reliability in mind. Production is very important for manufacturing plants, and having a dependable vacuum will help keep production running smoothly. We can help reduce your headaches from purchasing multiple electrical units, like the customer above. If you would like to discuss your Industrial Housekeeping requirements, an Application Engineer at EXAIR will be happy to help you select the correct product.
