Tag: manufacturing

Advantages of EXAIR’s TurboBlast Safety Air Guns

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It’s been almost three years since EXAIR introduced our latest innovation in handheld blowoff products: the TurboBlast Safety Air Gun. It came hot on the heels of the VariBlast Precision and Compact Safety Air Gun product lines, which both feature a variable pull trigger that affords the operator precise control over the flow & force produced. That proved to be a real game-changer for a lot of customers, letting them even more fully optimize their blowoff applications.

For that same kind of control, in a larger, more powerful Safety Air Gun, we incorporated a gate valve into the design of the TurboBlast. It’s operated by a rotating collar, directly downstream of the trigger:

A quarter turn of the gate valve collar changes the TurboBlast Safety Air Gun’s discharge from a breeze to a blast.

We make them without the gate valve too – if you’re buying a Safety Air Gun that’s capable of 23lbs of force, there’s a decent chance that you don’t need, or want, the ability to turn that down. With or without the gate valve, though, we’ve heard some great success stories from satisfied customers:

  • A company that refurbishes machinery for the pulp & paper industry uses Model 1925-3 TurboBlast Adjustable Safety Air Guns (with our Model 1114 1 NPT High Force Super Air Nozzle, 3ft Extension, and Gate Valve) for the initial cleaning of the machines, and at certain other steps in the breakdown & disassembly. The Extension gives them extra reach, and the ability to clean larger areas in a single blast, and the Gate Valve lets them reduce the output force for more delicate areas of the machine.
  • Workers in a foundry use a Model 1917 TurboBlast Safety Air Gun (with our Model 1118 1-1/4 NPT High Force Super Air Nozzle, no Extension or Gate Valve) to remove scales from metal products right out of the forge. This is a classic “don’t need, or want, the ability to turn that down” case.
  • A firefighting sprinkler system manufacturer quickly & easily removes debris from the inside of welded pipes with a Model 1915 TurboBlast Safety Air Gun (with our Model 1114 1 NPT High Force Super Air Nozzle, no Gate Valve or Extension.) Operators appreciate its ergonomic design for this repetitive work of blowing quick blasts of air through a bank of pipes.

Whether you need something that’ll deliver a pinpoint flow of air in a tight space, or one that’ll blow a wide pattern of air with high force, EXAIR has a Safety Air Gun for you. If you’d like to find out more, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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EXAIR Product Drawings

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My friend Bill’s Dad was an engineer for a major aviation manufacturer, and was among the first to use their brand-new (in the late 1960’s) computer-aided design & drafting (CADD) program. Their metal fab shop was still making drawings by hand, and asked him how precise the tolerances could be on a CADD drawing. He told them it could be as tight as a ten thousandth of a inch (0.0001″) so they asked him for such a drawing – aviation components have famously tight tolerances – so he entered it all in to the mainframe computer, which took a considerable amount of time and resources, but it generated the drawing that the fab shop needed. Later, they came and told him they were ready to make the part and asked if he wanted to come see it. When he got to the shop, he saw his drawing next to a piece of sheet metal on a table. The cut lines (specified by his drawing, which, again, had tolerances to the ten thousandth of an inch) were laid out in grease pencil, and a technician was readying an oxy-acetylene torch to make the cuts. That was the last time he took the trouble to make a drawing for that particular shop.

I don’t know for sure, but I’m fairly certain these parts aren’t made with a grease pencil & blowtorch.

In the 1990’s, I worked for an industrial pump company, and a big part of my job was using CAD (some time in the 1970’s or 1980’s, the 2nd “D” fell out of use, and it became known as computer-aided design, or computer-aided drafting) to make drawings showing our customers where the pump’s fluid ports would be (so they could prepare the suction & discharge piping) as well as the fabrication drawings for the baseplates that we mounted the pump and drive equipment on. The computer I used for that sat on my desk, whereas the computer that Bill’s Dad used occupied several rooms in the building. I also used a mouse & keyboard instead of punch cards and magnetic tape reels to input my shapes & dimensions. And I don’t even want to think about how much more power their computer used.

I learned quickly that the first law of CAD is “never draw anything twice”, so I was ALWAYS pleased when manufacturers had CAD files to send me. I could simply drop those in to my drawings, and go about my day. That’s why, when I started this job at EXAIR, one of the things that impressed me most was our comprehensive CAD Library in our Knowledge Base. We do require registration (fast & free) as a user, but once you’re in the system, you can instantly download CAD files for any of our products. We even have solid models for folks who work magic with 3D design (I was strictly a 2D guy.)

EXAIR’s CAD Library has 2D drawings and 3D models of all of our products, like a Super Air Knife (left), Line Vac (center), or even a Chip Trapper System (right).

For any stock EXAIR product, you’re only a few mouse clicks away from getting drawing files. Our R&D engineers can also generate drawings of custom products – special length Air Knives, Line Vacs with custom flanges, etc. – upon request. If you’d like to find out more, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Application Spotlight: E-Vac Vacuum Generators Replace Vacuum Pumps

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If you’re building a vacuum lifting system, you have two basic choices for equipment to create the vacuum: a mechanically driven vacuum pump, or an air operated Venturi. Today, I’m going to tell the tale of some folks who switched from the former to the latter, and why they did it.

This customer makes cans for food, just like the ones you see on the shelf at the supermarket (in fact, it’s very likely you see the actual cans they make on those shelves) out of thin steel sheets. A vacuum lifting system, consisting of two rubber vacuum cups on the ends of two fast moving cylinders (90 times a minute fast) pick up the sheets and move them into a feeder, where the sheet is cut, rolled, and formed into can shapes. A mechanical vacuum pump provided the suction for the cups, and it worked great…until it didn’t. See, vacuum pumps like those have rotating parts in tight tolerance with other parts, and over time, they wear out. Since this facility runs 24/7, so do the vacuum pumps. They also run loud, and hot, until they break down. Which the one they called me about had done five times in the previous year, causing unplanned shutdowns of the machine, each lasting at least two hours, depending on how complicated the repair was, and if they had the right parts on hand. The first part of that time was spent waiting for the pump to cool down to a temperature that the maintenance techs could safely crawl under the machine (it wasn’t even in a convenient location) to remove it for the repairs. If there was a bright side, the awful racket the pump made stopped when the pump did. Not much of a bright side, though, as that silence was the sound of lost production. And revenue.

So, when the customer called, we talked about which Vacuum Generator would be the best fit, and how they could be incorporated into the system. Since the machine moved so fast (again, 90 times a minute fast,) they’d need to be as close as possible to the vacuum cups. That wouldn’t be a problem – our E-Vac Vacuum Generators are small, and light, so they could be fitted right onto the lifting cylinders. The thin steel sheets sometimes had wood chips or splinters on them from the pallets they came on. So we looked at Adjustable E-Vacs, which have larger throats to pass that particulate, since it could have clogged the narrow throat of an In-Line E-Vac.

Compressed air flow through the inlet (1), then through and adjustable annular nozzle (2). As the airstream enters the vacuum flow, it expands and increases in velocity (3). A vacuum flow is induced, creating suction (4). The airflow that is drawn through the vacuum inlet mixes with the primary airstream, then exhausts on the opposite end (5).

Since we were using Adjustable E-Vacs, and size & weight were prime considerations, we decided on the Model 840008M Adjustable E-Vacs, which are the smallest & lightest. Being adjustable, they could be ‘dialed out’ for higher vacuum performance, if needed. Which, it turns out, they didn’t. In fact, they were able to reliably pick up the sheets with the compressed air pressure regulated down to 60psig, reducing the operating cost. Which was kind of a big deal, since they run 24/7.

After their success on the first machine, they outfitted their other three machines with the Adjustable E-Vacs. Now, they’re saving over $2,000.00 a year from the repairs they no longer have to do on the vacuum pumps, and don’t have to worry about lost production while they did those repairs. And if that wasn’t enough, the reduction in noise and elimination of the heat they threw off made the environment a LOT more comfortable for the operators.

With (14) In-Line Models (seven sizes, all available in “High Vacuum” for non-porous products and “Low Vacuum” for lifting objects with a porous surface,) and (4) Adjustable models to choose from, we’ve got the solution to your pick-and-place application.

If you’re building a vacuum lifting system, you’ve got choices. In this case, the best choice was EXAIR E-Vac Vacuum Generators. What’s the best choice for you? Let’s find out – give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Boosting Ventilation With Air Amplifiers

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Entering a confined space comes with a number of risks:

  • Physical hazards: mechanical equipment, falling objects, structural collapse, etc. Historically, these account for about 20% of fatalities associated with confined space entry.
  • Engulfment hazards: that’s a less horrific way to say “buried alive.” These are similar to some physical hazards, except the danger is from asphyxiation instead of being crushed. A prime example of this would be a farmworker falling into a grain silo in such a way that their head is submerged in the volume of grain. About 11% of confined space entry fatalities involve engulfment accidents. EXAIR Line Vacs are actually used in emergency responses to these.
  • Atmospheric hazards: Without adequate ventilation, carbon dioxide can build up, displacing the oxygen that workers need to breathe. Toxic and flammable gases are in this category as well, and whether workers are asphyxiated or poisoned, failure to provide a safe atmosphere accounts for almost 60% of confined space entry deaths.

Before workers enter a confined space, permits are oftentimes required. Atmospheric monitoring and ventilation are key aspects of such permits: Monitoring to ensure an adequate level of oxygen and the reduction of toxic & flammable gases to safe exposure limits, and ventilation to make sure that happens. It’s generally recommended to have ventilation/exhaust equipment capable of providing 20 air changes per hour.

EXAIR Air Amplifiers are an easy & reliable choice for providing the required ventilation. With no moving parts to break or electrical components to fail, all they need is a supply of compressed air. So, how do we choose the right one? Since we know we need 20 air changes an hour, the first step is to determine the volume of the space. Let’s say we need to enter a 10ft x 6ft x 6ft tank:

  • 10ft x 10ft x 12ft = 1,200 cubic feet
  • 1,200 cubic feet of air X 20 changes per hour = 24,000 cubic feet of air to change per hour
  • 24,000 cubic feet/hour ÷ 60 minutes/hour = 400 cubic feet per minute

In this case, we could specify a Model 6042 2″ Aluminum Adjustable Air Amplifier, which uses just 21.5 SCFM @80psig to generate a total developed flow of 430 SCFM (see table above). Minus the 21.5 SCFM of compressed air flow, that means it’s drawing 408.5 SCFM in from the tank.

If additional airflow is required, the ring gap of the Adjustable Air Amplifier can be easily increased by threading the plug out of the body until the needed flow is achieved. A Pressure Regulator can also be used to ‘fine tune’ the compressed air supply, and hence, the ventilation flow.

EXAIR Air Amplifiers are a simple, low-cost way to move air, smoke, fumes, and even light materials. If you’d like to find out more, or if you have a potential application to discuss, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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