Tag: mexico

Longshore Racing Debuts at the Baja 1000

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

Ryan Longshore, a design engineer at EXAIR, famous for his hard work on our new High Lift Reversible Drum Vac, will now be famous for something else. He left Cincinnati, OH last Thursday November 6th, 2014 to run the Baja 1000. He is running the race with a few members of his family and friends as a part of Longshore Racing. His trip to the race is 2,168 miles. After driving to Ensenada for the start of the race, They will compete in 1,275 miles of racing, unlimited UTV class 19.

Longshore Racing
For any one unfamiliar with UTV class 19, here is a photo of the vehicle they will be using.

The Baja 1000 is one of the most grueling off road races in the world.  According to Scores International, the race this year will be 1,275 miles starting in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico finishing in La Paz, Baja California Sur. The course crisscrosses the Baja California Peninsula drive along the cost of the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California at various times.

The temperature in La Paz now is 87 degrees and sunny, so I hope he gets a chance to enjoy himself.

If they complete the race (a huge accomplishment), the convoy will then depart from La Paz to drive back to Louisville, KY.  For those of you scoring at home that is roughly 6,500 miles or around 80 hours of windshield time.

As I’m writing the blog the number 1943 is 398 miles into the race after running for 18 hours.  They only have 40 hours to compete in the Baja, so they have an uphill climb to finish in the allotted time, but they seem to be putting on a good showing so far.

Best of luck to # 1943! EXAIR is Cheering for You!

Monday Morning Update: The Longshore Racing team made it to mile 625 where they suffered an insurmountable breakdown – two broken front right ball joints. The repair vehicle was a couple hours away and they were unable to make the repairs in time to finish the race. Ryan has stated it has been an amazing journey and they have begun talking about next year.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
@Dave_Woerner
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com

 

Photo Courtesy of Longshore_Racing

I’m Back! But My A4 Isn’t…Commence Troubleshooting

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

Last week I enjoyed the company of Airtec Servicios, Dansar Industries, and Global Automation (EXAIR’s distributors in Mexico and parts of South America).  We met in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, for an EXAIR training event that covered all topics of EXAIR products.

Following my return to the States, I dug into a project at home that I’ve been working on here-and-there; my 98 Audi A4.  In an earlier blog post I showed the damage done to the cylinder head when a valve-train component failed and a few valves were bent.  After rebuilding the cylinder heads on a bench here at EXAIR, I finally got the engine back together and hit the key for the first time since I bought the car.

Fortunately, the valve timing was perfect and the engine fired right up.  Unfortunately, however, was the terrible knock from the bottom half of the engine – the half I left untouched during the initial repair.  (See image below for my feeling on the issue)

Lie_down_try_not_to_cry_cry_a_lot_cleaned_525Now I’m faced with a dilemma of the best course to take, and after chewing it over, I’ve decided to open up the bottom half of the engine and make the repair.  The most likely cause for the noise is a defective wrist pin or connecting rod.  When I open it up, I’ll be sure to take pics and share for those interested. I had thought repairing the top half of the engine would make the fix because most of the time that is the case. Similarly, we occasionally experience reduced performance in our Reversible Drum Vac. Most of the time (I’d speculate 95%-99%) a simple cleaning is all that is needed (see video demonstration here) because this product has no moving parts there is little to go wrong. Occasionally it is another issue that is causing reduced performance; for these times we have the Reversible Drum Vac troubleshooting guide:

lit6203-Reversible Drum Vac Troubleshooting

So, sometime soon I’ll run through the next troubleshooting steps for the engine in the A4. If you need help troubleshooting an EXAIR product or a compressed air application, please contact EXAIR.

In the meantime, the A4 is relaxing, hanging loose at home – and I am too.  Mexico was wonderful, and the people were more than kind.  But, it feels good to be home.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
LeeEvans@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_LE

Hasta Luego!

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

mexico-flag

As the users of our products have come to know, we support our product globally.  This means that if an end user (say in the Ukraine) has a technical question, they can contact an EXAIR Application Engineer directly.  And, we also provide support through our strong distribution network.

I’ve blogged before about our efforts to find and keep the best distributors, and I’ll be flying to San Luis Potosi, Mexico on Sunday to keep up with our efforts in that regard.  In addition to our Mexican distributor, Airtec Servicios, I’ll have the pleasure of spending time with our Nicaraguan distributor, Optima Industria, and our Costa Rican distributor, Dansar Industries.

The face-to-face time will help sort application specific questions, such as when it is better to use an Air Amplifier vs. a Vortex Tube; or how the back pressure in an application will affect the performance of a Vortex Tube.

All of our Central American distributors are knowledgeable and familiar with EXAIR product, which leads to in-depth technical discussions.  My favorite!

¡Hasta luego!

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
LeeEvans@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_LE

Summer Time = Vacation Time

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

I personally can’t believe I’m saying this but summertime is almost here.  With that comes vacations or the increasingly popular “Staycations”.  For myself I get to see a good friend from college get married as my vacation this year.   It will be the first time my wife and I have left our daughter for more than just one night.  With the vacation of course came a good amount of planning, both at home and at work.

At home we got lucky because our parents are going to take turns watching our daughter, house, and dogs.  (Can’t beat free baby/house/dog sitting.)  They’ll of course be eating it up because they get to spend so much time with their grand-daughter and getting to completely spoil her for several days.  For most people when they go on vacation they have to prepare the house for no one to be there during their vacation.  A few points we make sure to cover in the case no one will be home is to turn off the water at the main shut off, set the thermostat for around 80° F so the A/C isn’t running that much, get rid of as much food from the fridge as possible so there isn’t a loss in the case of a power outage.   We also stop the mail and the paper, and lastly we set a few lights to turn on and off so it still appears someone is home, this can be done through timers or trusted neighbors, which is what we use.  This makes sure that you aren’t wasting energy while you are gone and when you come back home everything is ready to go back to normal or in our case as close to normal it can get.

At work I have a similar checklist.  Make sure all my emails are taken care of that need to be, ensure the e-mail and voicemail messages are set correctly, clean the desk up, and make sure to log out of the computer so there is a lower risk of shenanigans involving my background image or desktop icons.  This makes sure than when I get back to the office I’m not spending time and energy trying to get to the point of caught up and working on new projects.

Preparing to leave for vacation is something you can very easily translate into how to prepare your compressed air system before you leave for a few days or even before you go home for the night.  You probably shut your compressor down so you can save money on your energy bill, the problem is if you don’t have a well maintained system you won’t have that stored air available when you come back.  If your system has leaks or if you are leaving a blow off on continuously even when the process is not needed then when you come in the next day or after a few days away the air isn’t there and you have to wait for the compressor to build up an initial charge to even begin work.  This not only causes additional work load on your compressor but it is down time that is easily avoidable.  With the help of our Six Steps to Compressed Air Optimization you can make sure you still have air in the storage tank when you get in on Monday rather than having to wait for the compressor.

So whether you are going on a vacation or just leaving for the day make sure you are doing everything you can to conserve, turn off those lights, seal up the leaks, and it will make the next time you come in that much easier.  Not to mention the savings you will see.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_BF