Tag: mister nozzle

EXAIR Siphon Fed Atomizing Nozzles

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

In today’s market, the cost of consumable products is on the rise, especially with paints, oils, and yes, even the cost of water.  You can help alleviate some of that cost by being more effective at spraying and by using less liquid.  The EXAIR Atomizing Nozzles can accomplish both of these objectives.  With the addition of compressed air, the liquid can be sheared into smaller micron-sized droplets.  By reducing the diameter of a particle by half, the surface area will increase by eight times.  With a smaller diameter, it will increase the coverage; thus, using less liquid material in your application.  In combination with a variety of spray patterns, you can accurately target the liquid onto the product instead of around the product.  EXAIR manufactures three families of Atomizing Nozzles; Internal Mix, External Mix, and the Siphon Fed.  In this blog, I will be discussing the Siphon Fed Atomizing Nozzles.

When no liquid pressure is available, the Siphon Fed Atomizing Nozzles will be able to create a vacuum to draw the fluid into the nozzle.  This action is done by a unique design of the air cap.  As the velocity of the air passes through the air cap, a low pressure is generated on the liquid side by a venturi.  These Atomizing Nozzles can draw liquid from a suction height of 36” (91 cm) or can be gravity fed from a distance of 18” (46 cm).  They are manufactured from stainless steel for durability and corrosion resistance.  The Siphon Fed models can spray viscous fluids up to 200 centipoise, and are used in many applications like washing, coating, cooling, quenching, and dust control. 

EXAIR carries three different body sizes; 1/8”, ¼”, and ½” NPT ports or with BSP conversion fittings.  So, you can create a light mist or a monsoon.  The maximum liquid flow rate through each body size is controlled by the air and liquid cap.  These caps are easily interchangeable for each body size to modify the spray patterns, control the amount of fluid, and reduce any downtime if cleaning is required.  The amount of liquid to be applied is easily adjusted by the siphon height, inlet pressure, and the liquid adjusting stem.  So, you can dial in the exact amount of fluid required for your process to eliminate any waste or excess. They are very compact and easy to install.  We carry mounting brackets for each size to allow for easy mounting and positioning.   Versatility is very important in saving, applying, and spraying costly fluids, and the Siphon Fed Atomizing Nozzle has it. 

No Drip Atomizing Family

To reduce waste even more, EXAIR has a No Drip option.  This patented design is used to keep the expensive liquid from dripping out of the Atomizing Nozzles.  When the compressed air is turned off, a valve inside the body will create a seal on the liquid side.  For delicate applications, the No Drip option eliminates drips, which could possibly ruin the finish of your product.  This option also enhances the function of the Siphon Fed Atomizing Nozzle in intermittent processes.  It will keep the liquid inside the body of the nozzle; so, when air pressure is applied, the Atomizing Nozzle will give an instant spray.  Unlike some manufacturers, there is no need to run a separate compressed air line to operate the No-Drip function.  The Siphon Fed Atomizing Nozzles with the No Drip option becomes simple, efficient, effective, and controlled without any drips.    

If you need to maximize the liquid dispersion and minimize liquid consumption, the EXAIR Atomizing Nozzles are the products to use.  Instead of researching the requirements for liquid pumps or pressure pots, the Siphon Fed Atomizing Nozzle can draw the liquid through the feed line and start spraying.  It can help reduce the cost of your project as well as save you money on your consumable products.  If you have an application involving liquid spraying, an Application Engineer at EXAIR can help determine the correct model for you. 

John Ball
Application Engineer

Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

OmniStream Cone Nozzles And Metal Casting

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

As a child of the 1970s, my friends and I played with a LOT of toys that were die-cast. Most of us didn’t know what that meant; we just knew that we had to try REALLY hard to break them. Turns out, the ruggedness of those toys – and their widespread availability to the first crop of Gen-X kids – is directly related to the casting process. Metal casting produces stronger products than welding pieces together, and it’s WAY more cost-effective than machining parts that don’t necessarily need to hold tolerances measured in thousandths of inches.

One of the more popular methods for parts & products like this is called green sand casting. Basically, they add a specific amount of water to the sand so that it’ll hold its shape – that’s why the best sand castles on the beach are made closer to the surf – and make a mold. Then they pour in molten metal, let it cool, remove the cast part, and repeat for as many parts as they need to make. Fun fact: they call it “green sand” because of the moisture content – like “green wood” gets its name because of the sap content – not because of the color (it’s NOT green colored).

Anyway, the mixing process for the sand & water blend is kind of an exact science. Too much water, and the mold won’t hold its shape, and too little will make it brittle. It’s also easier and quicker to mix if the water is sprayed, as opposed to dumping or pouring it in.

The reason I know all this is that I had the pleasure of talking with a caller who runs a specialty casting foundry. They make parts that weigh a couple of ounces, a couple of hundred pounds, and anything in between. They, of course, keep the molds they’ve made for repeat customers, so they’re ready to go when a new order is placed, but they’re also making new molds all the time, and wanted to improve the sand/water mixing process. They didn’t need the extremely fine droplet size of an Air Atomizing Spray Nozzle, nor did they want something whose flow was measured in gallons per hour. They were actually looking for about one gallon per minute from a compact device that could spray a wide round pattern into a rotary drum that looked an awful lot like a small concrete mixer. They chose Model FL1010SS OmniStream Cone Nozzle.

Since 1 gallon per minute is right in the middle of the FL1010SS’ flow performance range, it was the obvious choice for this application.

As the sand in the mixer turns, the conical spray is evenly, and quickly, is soaked into the sand. This reduced the time it took to get a consistent mixture, and eliminated clumps they’d occasionally get when the water was poured in, which they’d have to break up by hand after stopping the mixer, which saved even more time…and operator frustration!

If you need to spray liquid in a consistent, repeatable manner, EXAIR has an enormous range of flow rates & spray patterns. If you’d like to find out more, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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From Damp To Soaked, Wide to Skinny, We Can Cover It

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Here at EXAIR our roots are planted firmly in efficient use of compressed air, a costly utility that is widely used within industry. We have continually expanded these offerings and, a little over a decade ago, we even branched out to include liquid spraying nozzles.

142 distinct models. 8 different patterns. Liquid flow rates from 0.1 to 303 gallons per hour. If you’ve got a spraying application, EXAIR has an Atomizing Nozzle for you!

As it sits today, we offer multiple families and sizes of both Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles and Liquid Atomizing Spray Nozzles.

Just like drying, or cooling with compressed air, when it comes to getting something wet, we have expanded that product offering pretty continuously over the past decade and will continue to do so. The benefit to you, our content consumer / customer, is that we have the ability to outfit your application with a wide variety of spray patterns and capacities to meet the need. Best of all, these are all in stock, meaning they ship on the same day for orders received by 2 PM ET that are shipping within the US.

We currently offer 44 different types of Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles ranging from 1/8″ NPT Internal Mix Narrow Angle Round Pattern up to 1/2″ Hollow Cone 360° nozzles. This means you can go from the amount needed to lubricate a drill bit during a peck drilling operation up to the amount needed to simulate a rainstorm in a 13′ diameter area. That’s only the models that still require a source of industrial compressed air.

On top of those, we offer the Liquid Atomizing Nozzles, which only require a source of pressurized liquid and which are currently available in 8 different styles, ranging from 1/4″ OmniStream to 1/2″ NPT HollowStream Atomizing nozzles. These nozzles carry variability in spray by simply increasing or decreasing the liquid pressure going into the nozzle. With the single inlet that is perpendicular to the spray discharge, it is easy to fit into tight spaces and still cover a variety of sizes.

If you want to narrow down which of these hundreds of models your application may need, don’t hesitate to call in and speak to an actual human when you do. Our team of Application Engineers are at the ready, Monday through Friday 0700-1600 ET.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Big Dust Problem, Small Spray Nozzle Solution

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

A company that provides contamination control solutions to the mining industry needed to suppress dust from mined ore on a conveyor belt. Inexpensive spray nozzles supplied from the plant’s water system suppressed the dust, but resulted in a fair amount of runoff. This wasn’t an issue in a lot of their applications, but environmental regulations called for containment of the runoff from this particular material, so it was critical to minimize that runoff.

The conveyor belt was six feet (1.8 meters) wide and was relatively slow moving, so I specified two Model AF8020SS 1/8 NPT Internal Mix Flat Fan Pattern Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles, each capable of spraying up to 4.27 gallons per hour of water over a 47″ width at a distance of 15″ from the surface. This allowed for flexibility in mounting, and some overlapping spray in the middle, where dust suppression was needed most – and any excess spray would be contained in the bulk of the material.

Internal Mix Atomizing Spray Nozzles are the perfect choice for fine mist and precise control, which is critical for dust suppression applications.

At first, they were skeptical about the size of the 1/8 NPT Air Atomizing Spray Nozzle. The liquid nozzle they were using was “about as large as a baseball” and was supplied with a 1/2″ pipe. Once installed, though, they were impressed with the fine mist in the broad, thin pattern that was easily – and widely – controllable by regulating the air & liquid supply pressures.

From Round Patterns (left), to Flat Fan Patterns (middle), to Hollow Circular Patterns (right), EXAIR has Spray Nozzles to suit your liquid spraying needs.

EXAIR Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles are THE ideal solution when you need low flow rates – whether it’s for conservation of expensive liquids, eliminating drips or runs when applying coatings, or preventing runoff like in this application. If you want to find out how EXAIR can help you get the most out of the liquid you’re spraying – and your compressed air usage – give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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