Back in September I wrote about how our Model 1410SS-CS Blow Guns were recommended within a Cleaning Application for castings prior to wash. Update: The customer, in India, has since implemented the suggested changes and our distributor has monitored the daily use of compressed air. At the time of the first blog we estimated 75% air savings based on the information we had from the customer. The final result was nearly 70% compressed air savings. Also, the operators report that the air guns were easier to operate and provided sufficient force for their applications.
In our continuing support of the customer, we identified three other areas within their production plant where an improvement could be made with the application of some EXAIR Heavy Duty Safety Air guns.
The first application is one where the frame of a tractor has been steam washed and is subsequently blown off by hand. In this application, the operator needs to get into some tight areas to get water condensate blown out before the partially assembled frame can be painted. He was using a simple, rubber hose that he would kink over and stop the air flow. No nozzle, no air gun, nothing.
The second application was one where the operator appeared to be using some sort of modified water valve like you would see under your sink or toilet in your home. This operator was charged with blowing debris from primed surfaces before painting for the sheet metal body parts that make up the tractor housing.
The last application I will mention is one where an operator was responsible for blowing off the painted surfaces as they were exiting the drying oven after paint and cure. His job was to ensure the painted surfaces were clean and cool so they could be assembled together more quickly.
When I was deliberating about which of our solutions to recommend, I wanted to try and keep things simple and interchangeable for the end user. So, I made a recommendation for all three applications to use the same Safety Air Gun. That recommendation was model 1310-12. The projected savings for all three applications is well into the 70% range. The other benefit is that using the Heavy Duty Safety Air Guns instead of these other home-made and modified solutions is that the inherent safety of the applications will also improve as will the noise generation be reduced.
We think we have a good shot at replacing the blow offs in these areas since we already had one success with proven results. This will be our second strong case for the customer to follow recommendations. So they are confident in achieving similar efficiency improvements as the first blog explains.
Do you have home-made blow offs that you use in your production areas? Do they use a lot of compressed air? Are they safe? Do they make a lot of noise and leak a lot? Perhaps you would be well served to allow us to help you as well. We can make some preliminary comparisons to give you a good idea about how much air you could save. We have the EXAIR Efficiency Lab which is a service to our customers where they can send in their existing nozzle, gun or home-made item to have it tested by our engineers. We can then prepare a complete report about air flow comparisons, force, noise and what we would recommend from our offering to replace it. There isn’t any obligation to buy anything. Only the peace of mind that you made a good due diligence effort to make sure that what you are considering as a solution is better than what you have there now.
Neal Raker, International Sales Manager
nealraker@exair.com
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