Tag: light duty line vac

Coast to Coast and Beyond

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Recently, I was working with  a customer looking for a Premium Reversible Drum Vac and wanted it shipped to the Northwest Territories of Canada –  which we could do!  It got me to thinking, what are the farthest US state and territory locations EXAIR has shipped to in the North, South, West and East directions.  I ‘scoured’ the records and came up with these.

Furthest North- We have shipped to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.  Most recently, believe it or not, we shipped a NEMA 4X Cabinet Cooler to an Oil and Natural Gas Exploration Company.  Goes to show that even the coldest environments still have the need to provide cool, clean, dry air to cool and protect electronics in electrical enclosures.

Furthest South – We have shipped to the US Territory of Puerto Rico, city of Santa Isabel.  An Aerospace company needed a strong, laminar blast of air and utilized a 6″ Stainless Steel Air Knife.  An Air Knife offers a quiet, efficient way to clean, dry or cool parts, webs, or conveyors.

Furthest West- We have shipped to the US Territory of Guam.  The local University ordered a model 1111-4 Super Air Nozzle Cluster, for a good strong blast of air flow for a cleaning operation.  The model 1111-4 delivers 3.2 lbs of force, at just 82 dBA of sound. A safe and efficient nozzle for blowoff operations.

Furthest East- We have shipped to Eastport, Maine.  The customer in Eastport ordered a Line Vac and a section of Conveyance Hose.  The Line Vac is a great tool for conveying large volumes of material over long distances, through a standard hose or tube.  The compact design features large throat diameters for maximum throughput capability.

 

It was interesting to look back and see all the places that EXAIR has shipped.  We have customers from all over the globe. If you are outside the of 50 US States and Canada, we have a dedicated team of International Application Engineers that will work with you to select the best EXAIR product for your process and application, and direct you to your local International Distributor.

If you would like to talk about any of the EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Products, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or one of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Brian Bergmann
Application Engineer

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Twitter: @EXAIR_BB

Line Vac – Air Operated Conveyors

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Convey parts, materials, and waste – with no moving parts!

The Line Vac is a fast, low cost way to convey pellets, scrap trim, textiles, bulk solids, food products, chips, and much more.  Simply connect to a standard hose, tube, or pipe and a powerful in-line conveyor is created.

Available in (4) materials – aluminum, 303 and 316 stainless steels, and a special hardened alloy, and (3) end connection types – NPT threaded, smooth bore, and the new sanitary flanged. Sizes range from 3/8″ up to a 6″. It is certain that an available Line Vac option will meet your process criteria.

For lighter materials and short conveyance distances, the Light Duty model is ideal, and for the most abrasive and heaviest materials over longer distances, the Heavy Duty style is available.

The Line Vacs offer many safety benefits, including eliminating the dangers of lifting heavy sacks and climbing ladders to fill hoppers, and with the 316 stainless steel sanitary flanged Line Vacs, food materials are kept enclosed and and separated and provides ease of cleaning.

Check out the video by clicking the photo below

Capture

The Line Vac works by having a small amount of compressed air injected through directed nozzles to produce a vacuum on one end and high output air flow on the other, with instantaneous response.  By using a pressure regulator, available as part of a kit or separately, the flow of the material transfer can be easily controlled. No moving parts or electricity assures maintenance free operation!

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Trim Scrap Removal

Conveyance rates are determined by the material bulk density, typical particle size, total distance of conveyance, including vertical rise, and the targeted transfer rate.  An EXAIR Application Engineer can assist you, and with the above information, recommend the right size and type of Line Vac to meet the desired results.

All catalog models are in stock and we ship same day with an order received by 3 pm EDT in the US and 2 pm EDT for orders shipping to Canada.

Our team of engineers can design a special Line Vac to meet many applications special requirements, from special materials such as PVC and PVDF to special end connections such as pipe flanges and barbed hose connections.  Let us know the special requirements of your process and we’ll design a solution.

Special Flanged LV
This special 3/4″ Line Vac was designed to evacuate fumes from a silicone wafer etching operation

To go with the Line Vac, we can provide a reinforced, heavy wall, clear PVC conveyance hose in lengths up to 50′.  Additionally, the Line Vac Drum Cover is a fine mesh, non-woven cover built to fit on the top of a 30 or 55 gallon drum.  It is designed to contain the material to the drum and allow the air from the Line Vac to escape.

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Drum Cover, for 30 and 55 Gallon Drums

If you have questions regarding the Line Vac, or would like to talk about any EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Product, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or one of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Brian Bergmann
Application Engineer

Send me an email
Find us on the Web 
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Twitter: @EXAIR_BB

Light Duty Line Vac For Part Rejection

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Today I worked with a long standing customer that was interested in using the Line Vac technology to provide a method for part rejection.  The parts come out of a bin and travel to the next station for final assembly.  There is an accept/reject analysis system along the way, and it was decided that the Line Vac would offer an easy way to remove the part from the conveyor and transport it to a reject bin.

The parts are very small, with 0.093″ to 0.187″ OD and 0.178″ to 0.335″ lengths.  Part weights were 0.27 grams or less, so a very small and light weight item.  Maximum part processing was estimated at less than 6 parts per minute, so low speed and low transfer rates apply.  The final piece of information was the distance for conveyance, and here it was only a few inches up and then 4′ over to the reject bin.

Based on all the information about the parts, the process and the transfer distance, it was determined that the 3/4″ Light Duty Line Vac would be an ideal choice for the application. The unit is available as part of the  model 132075 Light Duty Line Vac Kit, which includes a Automatic Drain Filter Separator and a Pressure Regulator.  The Pressure Regulator is especially important in this application, as it will allow for pressure adjustment to provide the best performance while keeping the compressed air usage to a minimum.

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The EXAIR Family of Line Vacs

 

EXAIR manufactures 3 styles of Line Vac- Light Duty, Standard, and Heavy Duty with either smooth bore hose or NPT threaded ends.  They are offered in 4 types of materials- Aluminum, Type 303 and Type 316 Stainless Steel, and a hardened alloy construction. An important factor in material selection is the abrasiveness of the material to be conveyed.

To discuss your application and how an EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Product can help your process, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or one of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Brian Bergmann
Application Engineer

Send me an email
Find us on the Web
Like us on Facebook
Twitter: @EXAIR_BB

 

Light Duty Line Vac Conveys the “Slugs” from a Die Punch Application

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

At EXAIR, we get asked a lot of interesting questions about what our products can do. One of them that occurs with some frequency is, “Can your Line Vac convey slugs from a stamping operation?” The answer is usually yes as “slugs” (the material punched out of a sheet of stock to create a hole) are well suited in size, shape and weight to be conveyed effectively with the Line Vac product. We are used to this question from folks who are processing various types of metal sheet. The slugs tend to build up within their tooling and basically get in the way, if not even jam up the tooling from time to time. So getting rid of them from the process becomes a necessity that is, many times, not addressed during the tool making process.

Recently, we had another customer with this same kind of problem with foam. They were processing a foam sheet by punching a many holes in it which generated the waste stream you see above. Little pieces of foam about 8 – 10 mm in diameter and about 40 mm long. As you probably have guessed by now, the area that was set up to receive these renderings quickly became loaded full with the foam slugs. The customer needed to find a way to remove the slugs to a remote area so the receiving container could be switched out easily without stopping production. The original container was small, plastic bin about the size of a kitchen garbage can. The new receiving container was a large cardboard box that typically goes by the term Gaylord. The customer needed to set the Gaylord about 3 – 4 meters away from the die punching area. This is where the EXAIR model 130300 (3” Light Duty Line Vac) comes into play. The customer fabricated a chute that was positioned under the area to catch the slugs. The chute transitions to accept the 3” Light Duty Line Vac for connection at the bottom. Then, a 3” hose is connected to the output side of the Light Duty Line Vac so it could blow the slugs over to the Gaylord.

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Foam Slugs From Die Stamping Process

The customer chose the Light Duty Line Vac because it uses less air than a comparable size of our Standard Duty units. They didn’t need a tremendous amount of suction power due to the light-weight nature of the slugs. They also wanted a 3” unit to make sure none of the product would get caught anywhere within the conveying stream.

With the new Light Duty Line Vac installed, the operators do not have to spend as much time tending to the emptying of the previous, small containers that had to be used due to their size for fitting into the catch area. For an application where thousands of these slugs are produced in an hour, the productivity gain was significant. The customer didn’t place an exact value on the gain, but are considering this method for other, similar processes they have in the plant.

Neal Raker, International Sales Manager
 nealraker@exair.com
@EXAIR_NR