Tag: manufacturing

Finding What You Want – A Black Friday Blog

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

In the United States, today is the day that we traditionally call “Black Friday” – the retail industry’s unofficial “start of Christmas gift shopping season” – where stores made a habit of opening up early with deep discounts on select items. Here’s the deal: these are SELECT items (that THEY select) and the hopes are, you’ll buy more stuff (that may or may not be on sale) while you’re there. If you know exactly what you want, it can be a good deal for you. If you don’t, it can be a good deal…for the store.

Although we don’t have Black Friday sales events (in fact, we – and I believe most others in the industry, are closed today,) it still makes good sense to know what you’re looking for before you start shopping.  Let’s consider something basic, like an air gun.

Left-right: Precision, Soft Grip w/Stay Set Hose, Heavy Duty w/Rigid Extension, & Super Blast Safety Air Guns. With so many to choose from, we've got the one you're looking for.
Left-right: Precision, Soft Grip w/Stay Set Hose, Heavy Duty w/Rigid Extension, & Super Blast Safety Air Guns. With so many to choose from, we’ve got the one you’re looking for.

Price: this can be a real two-edged sword…not much is cheaper than a commercial grade air gun that you can buy at just about any hardware store. But, they can use upwards of 50 SCFM.  By comparison, our Model 1210 Soft Grip Safety Air Gun uses only 14 SCFM (@80psig supply pressure.)  And in any typical industrial blow off application, it’ll do the exact same thing, and cost WAY less to operate.  Use this calculator to find out.

Sound level:  you won’t find a quieter blow off product on the market.  At 80psig, the 1210 Safety Air Gun is only running at 74dBA.  Others can be well over 100dBA…that’s up to 3 times as loud, and well in excess of OSHA’s limits published in Standard 29CFR1910.95(a).

Safety: OSHA also limits the dead-end pressure of compressed air blow off devices used for cleaning purposes, to 30psig.  Unless it’s fitted, or designed, with a relief feature, you can’t supply it with any more than 30psig compressed air…which won’t really do a lot, when you think about the jobs you want to use an air gun for.  Ours can’t be dead ended, so you can supply them with 80-100psig for strong performance AND safety…by design.

Durability: You get what you pay for.  Normally, I would say “’nuff said,” but for further proof of this, I submit this blog, from the archives, on our Durable, Safe, and Efficient Safety Air Guns.  ‘Nuff said (now, anyway.)

If you’d like to talk about your compressed air product application, and how an EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Product might be the solution you’re looking for, give me a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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Happy Thanksgiving!

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

Knowing many of you may be distracted by the thought of Mom’s (or Dad’s) home cooking – we would like to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy any time off, and your families and friends.

EXAIRthanksgiving2015_800x988_C

Enjoy,
The EXAIR team
1-800-903-9247

Stretch Wrap Static Solution

Published on by 1 Comment

Recently a customer called in to EXAIR to discuss a static issue in a stretch wrap process in the plant. Stretch wrap is a highly stretchable plastic film.  The elastic recovery keeps the wrapped load tightly bound. The most common stretch wrap material is a linear low-density polyethylene or LLDPE.  The combination of the stretching of the plastic film and the sliding of the film on the cardboard boxes as it is being wrapped causes a build up of static. This static can cause serious havoc and issues in the process including personnel shocks, zapping counters and other sensors causing failures, and preventing marking systems from delivering good information on to the stratch wrap.

wrapper (2).jpg
Stretch Wrap Operation

The discussion started with minimum and maximum load sizes and how to design a system that would work with all configurations and be as flexible as possible.  We spoke of dimensions and where we could we could mount on 3 sides, and so forth.

Then came the question that we invariably get to and that is ‘what issue does the static cause and how does it affect the rest of the process?’  The answer here simple, ‘an operator has to write a code number on the side and affix a label, and in doing so, receives a shock.’ When it was determined that only a small section of one side of the load needed to be treated, the solution was simple.  We proposed an 18″ Ionizing Bar and Power Supply. Because the machine had a fixed datum, all loads would pass within 1-2″ of a vertically installed Ionizing Bar, so no adjustment is needed for different load sizes.

Ion Bar
Ionizing Bars Treating Top and Bottom Surfaces

The Ionizing Bar quickly dissipates a strong static charge as shown in the chart below.

capture

EXAIR offers many systems for total static control. When static is a problem on moving webs, sheet stock, three dimensional parts, extrusions or packaging, EXAIR has a solution.

To discuss your application and how an EXAIR Static Eliminator would help out, feel free to contact EXAIR and one our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Brian Bergmann
Application Engineer

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A Glass Company Needed a Vortex Tube to Keep Their Pyrometer Reading Accurately

Published on by John BallLeave a comment
Cooling with the Vortex Tube
Cooling with the Vortex Tube

A glass company was using a pyrometer to measure the temperature of the glass. As with many instruments, it is important to keep the electronics cool for proper operations.  In this case, they were having issues with the accuracy of the measurement.  They contacted EXAIR for a solution.

With their pyrometer, it was designed with a “cooling” device already. This was basically compressed air that would blow around the instrument.  Because of the surrounding area, the compressed air was heating up to 50 deg. C.  This additional heat would not cool the pyrometer properly, and it was causing unreliable readings.  He gave me the design specifications for cooling, and it was 40 liters per minute of compressed air at a maximum of 25 deg. C.  I told him that we had the perfect solution to keep his instrument cool, and it is the EXAIR Vortex Tube. Vortex Tubes are a low cost, reliable, maintenance-free solution that uses compressed air to power the Vortex Tube to produce cold air as low as -46 deg. C. They thrive in remote locations, high temperature environments, and harsh conditions with little to no worry about maintenance (other than providing a source of clean air). With a range of cooling capacities from 135 BTU/hr to 10,200 BTU/hr, I was sure that we could meet the requirements for proper cooling.

To determine the correct size, I had to look at the temperature drop and the flow requirement. The Vortex Tube would have to decrease the incoming temperature from 50 deg. C to at least 25 deg. C.  This would equate to a minimum temperature drop of 25 deg. C.  With the chart below, I see that we are able to get a 29.7 deg. C temperature drop at a 70% Cold Fraction and 3 bar inlet pressure.  EXAIR Vortex Tubes are very adjustable to get different outlet temperatures by adjusting the inlet pressure and the Cold Fraction.  The Cold Fraction (CF) is the volume of cold air flow that will be coming out the cold end.  By adjusting a screw on the hot end of the Vortex Tube, the cold flow can be change to the desired CF.

Vortex Performance Chart
Vortex Performance Chart

The other requirement was the amount of air flow, 40 SLPM (Standard Liters per Minute).  In comparing the above information to the catalog data at 6.9 bar, we have to consider the difference in absolute pressures. With an atmospheric pressure of 1 bar, the equation looks like this:

VTflow = CAF/CF * (Catalog Pressure + 1 bar)/(Supply Pressure + 1 bar)

VTflow – Catalog Vortex Tube flow

CAF – Cold Air Flow

CF – Cold Fraction

Catalog Pressure – 6.9 bar

Supply Pressure – Chart above

From this equation, we can solve for the required Vortex Tube:

VTflow = 40 SLPM/0.7 * (6.9 bar + 1 bar) / (3 bar + 1 bar) = 112.9 SLPM.

In looking at the catalog information, this would equate to our model 3204 Vortex Tube which uses 113 SLPM of compressed air at 6.9 bar. So, after installing, the Vortex Tube was able to supply 20.3 deg. C air at a flow of 40 SLPM; keeping the pyrometer reading correctly and accurately.

Sometimes compressed air by itself is not enough to “cool” your instruments. The EXAIR Vortex Tubes can reduce the temperature of your compressed air to the desired requirement.  If you believe that your measuring equipment is being affected by temperature, please contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR to find the correct product for you.

 

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb