Tag: ndraker

Internal Mix Atomizing Nozzle for Roll-forming Application

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment
20160603_090706_001
Roll-formed metal stud material

Our distributor from South Africa contacted me recently with a problem that one of his customers were having with their roll forming process. Their business is making metal studs used for erecting walls and covering with drywall. The metal studs start out as a 200 mm wide x 0.5 mm thick roll of sheet metal. The customer feeds the sheet metal through a series of rolling dies that gradually impart the final shape of a metal stud to the material. During this process, a lubricant is applied through a couple of metal pipes with drilled holes in them to disperse the lubricant onto the metal sheet.

The problem with the application is that it makes a total mess because there aren’t any controls on the fluid flow to keep the application rate where it needs to be. All they need is a light coating of the lubricant. What they’re getting now is a constant drizzle from multiple holes. Not only is this wasteful for the use of the lubricant, it causes a huge mess in the form of puddled lubricant on the floor. This problem also presents a slip and fall hazard to the operators as well. See the photo below.

 

 

20160603_090732
Application of lubricant through drilled, metal pipe

In an effort to help them, my friend Wayne contacted me about the situation and presented a couple of scenarios he had in mind. One was to keep the existing system in place and use a couple of Super Air Knives to blow off the excess lubricant into a catch basin. The other was to apply a couple of our Internal Mix, Wide, Flat Atomizing nozzles into the application to provide a fine spray of the lubricant on both sides of the sheet metal.

After asking a few questions about whether the liquid was under any sort of pressure, its viscosity and the desired application rate I suggested to Wayne that the customer go with (2) pieces of model AF1010SS Internal Mix, Flat Fan Atomizing Nozzle. This Atomizing nozzle is more than adequate to provide the customer with the precise amount of the lubricant onto the sheet metal just prior to forming. The point in recommending the atomizing nozzles is to conserve the customer’s lubricant when it is applied in the first place so that they don’t have the huge mess that ends up developing during continuous operation. In this way, they are not treating a symptom of the problem by blowing the excess lubricant with a Super Air Knife, but rather tackling the problem right at its source by choking back on the application of the fluid in the first place.

After the customer installed their nozzles and made a production run, they were able to dial the application rate in to exactly what they needed. The mess and safety hazard went away and the customer was able to cut their lubricant use by half so far. They say they will continue to try and optimize its use as saving the lubricant used represented a nice cost savings to the customer that they had not thought about prior to engaging our distributor to help them take away this headache. They were simply concerned about the mess in the beginning.

It’s always nice to have such positive knock-on effect when you make process improvements like this.

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

 

Stainless Steel Line Vac turns Super Sack into a Large Vacuum Bag

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

LV PE pellet application2

I had an interesting application from a guy in Kuwait who worked at a plastics plant. They worked with polyethylene pellets for molding processes. In his introduction, the customer said he was looking for something like our Chip Vac product but he wanted to use it with a super sack platform that they elevate up to a high position to allow for cleaning in and around their silos. I mentioned to him that we do have the Chip Vac available to work with a 110 gallon drum. His response was that he knew about that but was not interested as they were set up to move the larger super sacks around their plant. You can see one such set-up in the above photo.

His problem was that he needed a quick and easy way to get the loose PE pellets into his super sack without using a broom and shovel. We had just the solution.

Many years ago when we introduced the Chip Vac product, we did so as a result of customers who knew about our Line Vac but wanted it to be used on a drum. So, we adapted the Line Vac to have the proper, 2 NPT threads necessary to screw into the larger of the two holes in the top of a typical drum. In this situation, we were working the development that we did so long ago in reverse. So, it was a very easy recommendation to set the customer up with a Line Vac to aid in the vacuuming up of the polyethylene pellets and do so in the manner the customer wanted.

After a little discussion to sort out the type of material and the size Line Vac that the customer wanted, we ended up settling on a 1-1/2” Stainless Steel Line Vac Kit, model 6963. The 1-1/2” size allowed for easy connection of a standard size vacuum hose for easy manipulation around the clean-up area. The customer opted for the stainless steel over an aluminum unit as they wanted to be absolutely certain that the product could stand up to their typically rough conditions. He also wanted the kit so he could mount the Line Vac to his platform and have clean, dry air going to the Line Vac to keep it running well for a longer time. Below is a rough sketch of the customer’s idea about how to marry the Line Vac to his super sack platform.

 

LV setup

You can notice from the sketch that the customer already had his filtration system thought out to allow the conveying airflow back out of the bag.

The key to this application and the feature that I want to point out is the adaptability of the Line Vac to fit into just about any application. We do have the Industrial Housekeeping products available for ready to use solutions. But, if you have a similar situation where you have part of your “system” that you like for one reason or another, we’re more than willing to discuss what you have at your facility to help you best determine how we can implement a solution that you are happy with. Likewise, if we feel that there is a better way to approach your application, we will be sure to let you know that too!

Give us a ring or send us an e-mail to discuss the specifics of your application today. We’re here to help.

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

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.

P1060775
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

 

EXAIR Describes the Process of Static Eliminators

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

4 R UMAX PL-II V1.4 [3]

 

One of our overseas distributors provides solutions for a customer who has bought quite a few of the Ion Air Guns for their production. The customer raised a question for which our distributor requested help to answer. The customer asked, “What exactly is going on in the process, when you blow ions on an item?” There is a large interest in these products and they are interested know more. It is not, that they are afraid of the procedure, they just wonder what physically happens, so my question to you is: Could you write an explanation on what happens within the static eliminating equipment when it is energized?

For the answer, you have to go back to high school science class to remember the definition of an ion. An ion is an an electrically charged atom or group of atoms formed by the loss or gain of one or more electrons. Put simply, it is an atom with either extra or fewer electrons than it is supposed to have normally. This excess or deficit of electrons makes the molecule attract electrically to atoms or molecules with the opposite charge. Too many electrons = negative charge. Too few = positive charge.

Gases can form ions as a result of an electrical charge. Gas ions are defined as such: one of the electrically charged particles formed in a gas by electric discharge or the like. The atoms we are creating with our static eliminators are oxygen ions or “ozone”. Due to the AC waveform of the electrical supply, the power supply generates 50 Hz signal that produces both positive and negative ions, depending on the phase of the electrical supply. In this way, our static eliminators produce ozone which can eliminate static of either polarity.

What happens at the atomic level is the ions we create are attracted to and combine with the electrostatic field present on material which has a static charge. The electrostatic field present on insulating materials is present because of two possibilities. Either there was some contact & separation of materials, friction (like rubbing a balloon on the hair), or there was a separation of two insulating materials which were previously in intimate (close) contact with one another (like peeling a protective film from a surface). When this happens, the electrons will move from one material surface to another based on their potential to gain or lose electrons (reference Triboelectric Series). The balance of the surface electrons becomes unbalanced as the electrons at the outer layers will be knocked out of their home orbit and take up with another atom to make it negative, thus leaving the previously neutral atom in a positive state.

When one applies a static eliminating ions from one of our products on to an application where static is causing a problem, they are providing those needed electrons to help the charged material balance itself out. The reason that it happens to insulating materials is because they cannot conduct an electrical signal and so the electrical charge remains on the surface until it is dissipated by active means like our static eliminators or by natural means (a much slower process) where air molecules floating around the charged surface will lower the overall charge to a point until it reaches a point of electrical balance. So, our ionizers (also known as static eliminators) simply speed that process up immensely and eliminate static charges in a fraction of a second. 

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