Tag: point of use

Enhance Your EXAIR Product & More w/ Accessories

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

If you hang around with me for long enough, you will grow to understand that I love comedy movies. One of my favorite production groups is Broken Lizard. You might know some of their work and, just to be clear, I have seen all the movies, watched two of the guys’ TV shows, and listened to some of their podcasts. When trying to come up with a title for today’s blog, I looked up synonyms for “Accessorize”. The picture below shows the results.

If you haven’t seen Super Troopers, then I am not sure if we can continue to be friends. Actually, I won’t hold it against you. There is a scene in the movie where they are trying to get some information from a photo and so Ramathorn is sitting at a computer and working on the photo. He continually types and says, “Enhance” several times until the chief briskly informs him to just print the photo already. Unfortunately, I can’t share the clip here because there may be some inappropriate language at the end of the clip, so just believe my poor description that it is funny.

Well, all the products EXAIR offers in our Accessories catalog section will ENHANCE your point-of-use compressed air application. Whether it be a point-of-use filter/ oil removal filter, and a regulator with mounting brackets and coupling kits to ensure you have clean air being utilized. See the video below for just how well they work and why they are important to an installation.

Items like Swivel Fittings, Stay Set Hoses, and even lengths of Air Hose can give versatility in locations where hard piping and getting precise alignment of the air stream are needed. This can save the installer of a blowoff many fittings and hours of time on installation. The Swivel Fittings give a lock-in-place adjustment capable of 25° from centerline at 360° of rotation.

The Stay Set Hoses are another tool-free adjustable mounting option for point of use compressed air products. The ability to get rid of copper tubing, which is costly and can kink if proper tools aren’t used to bend it, is great for easy installation in the field. To see how easily they can be used, check out the video by John Ball below.

Even after these products we still offer a number of accessories that will aid operators in their production environment. If you want to discuss any part of the EXAIR product offering, please contact an Application Engineer today.

Brian Farno, MBA – CCASS Application Engineer

BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Air Compressors: Savings Found on the Supply and Demand Side

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

Producing compressed air can be expensive, but it is necessary for pneumatic systems.  And a large part of that expense is wasted energy, in the form of heat.  Waste will add to your overhead and affect your bottom line.  EXAIR has a line of products to help reduce air consumption at the point-of-use to save you money.  This would include replacing open-pipes and tubes with EXAIR Super Air Nozzles and Super Air Knives.  But, let’s look at the supply side inside your compressor room.  The air compressor operates at about 10% efficiency where most of that loss is in a form of heat. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to recover some of that expense?  You can.  By equipping your air compressor with a heat recovery system.  These systems are designed to recover the loss of heat for other uses.  Today, they can recover somewhere between 50% for liquid-cooled compressors to 80% for air-cooled compressors.  The heat can come from the after-coolers, the electric motor, the “heat of compression”, and the oil cooler.  This reclaimed heat can be used to heat water, warm rooms, pre-heat steam systems, and dry parts. 

Let’s create an example.  A company has a 100 HP air-cooled compressor that is running 8 hours per day for 250 days per year.  The heat recovery system will be able to reclaim 60% of the heat to warm city water in the plant.  If the electrical cost is $0.10 per KWh, we can calculate the savings.

Annual Savings:

100 HP * 0.746 KW/HP * 0.6 (reclaim) * 8 hours/day * 250 days/yr * $0.10/KWh = $8,952.00 savings per year.

In practice, reclaiming the maximum percentage may not be cost effective.  Your company can determine the best percentage for heat recovery by calculating the Return on Investment (ROI).  I wrote a blog post that can help you estimate (Click Here). 

As mentioned above, EXAIR saves you money and increase efficiency on the demand side.  EXAIR has engineered nozzles to help reduce compressed air usage.  The following is a quick calculation by replacing an open-end blow-off with an EXAIR Super Air Nozzle.  If you have a ¼” (6mm) copper tube, it will use 33 SCFM (935 SLPM) of compressed air at 80 PSIG (5.5 bar).  As a common replacement, EXAIR uses a model 1100 Super Air Nozzle which will use 14 SCFM (396 SLPM) at 80 PSIG (5.5 bar).  With a simple tube fitting, you can mount the ¼” NPT Super Air Nozzle to the end of the ¼” copper tube.  If we use the same pretext as above, we can find the annual cost savings.  With an air compressor that produces 5 SCFM/hp, we can get a cost savings with the Super Air Nozzle.  The difference in air flow at 80 PSIG (5.5 bar) is:

33 SCFM (copper tube) – 14 SCFM (Model 1100) = 19 SCFM savings

Annual Savings:

19 SCFM * 1 HP/ 5 SCFM * 0.746 KW/HP * 8 hr/day * 250 days/yr * $0.10/KWh = $566.96 savings per year per nozzle.

Whether it is on the supply side or the demand side, companies are looking to reduce or reuse the wasted energy to have a more efficient compressed air system.  The heat recovery system is a bit more complex, but should be considered.  The EXAIR engineered nozzles are more simplistic, and they can give you a return on your investment in a short period of time.  If you would like to discuss how to improve your compressed air system from the supply side to the demand side, an Application Engineer at EXAIR will be happy to assist you. 

John Ball
Application Engineer

Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Photo: Idea by Saydung89.  Pixabay License.

Oil Removal Filters: Never First, Sometimes Last

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

If you have been around compressed air systems, our blogs, or even optimized installations of point of use compressed air products, you will see point of use filtration in place. These filters come in a plethora of sizes, shapes, and specifications. Here at EXAIR we recommend to always keep a point of use filtration solution in place. This would include an auto-drain filter separator, as well as an oil removal filter.

Oil Removal Filters

So why do we have two instead of one? Could you use just the oil removal filter rather than two? Well, the answer lies in an optimized installation that will also carry with it a lower total cost of ownership. The auto-drain filter separators from EXAIR have a filter element which takes the air to a 5 micron level of filtration. (Except for the model 9004 which filters down to 20 micron.) The Oil Removal Filters have a coalescing filter element which filters to a 0.3 micron level for the finest debris/mists that may be contained within the compressed air stream. One reason for the separation is when a system is oil-free, the finer filtration level may not be needed. Also, by catching the bulk of material with the standard auto-drain filter and then leaving the finer filter to catch the residual amounts liquid that had been finely atomized within the stream of compressed air. This finer filter costs more so using it to catch larger particulate and risking it becoming clogged quicker will increase the total cost of ownership of the point of use compressed air product it is hooked to, hence never first and sometimes last. After the point of use filtration then placing the point of use pressure regulator and solenoid valves are next. This is all a better way to reduce risk of these being damaged from dirt and contaminants in the air lines. Total cost of ownership reductions all point to a better sustainability of any product.

To better showcase the importance of filtration, here’s a brief video I did a while back that visualizes just what one can see out of a compressed air line with minimal moisture introduced.

https://videopress.com/v/5M19DaLg?preloadContent=metadata

As you can see, keeping the point of use air filtered protects your process and decreases the total cost of ownership for your compressed air point of use product. If you would like to discuss other ways we can improve efficiency within your facility and help ensure you are getting the longest life out of your products, please contact us.

Brian Farno, MBA – CCASS Application Engineer

BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

OSHA Safety Standards for Compressed Air

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Safety should always be a serious concern within industrial environments.  Walk through any production facility and you should see all kinds of steps taken to give a safe workplace to the operators, contractors, and other team members.  Whether this is through a sign showing PPE required to enter an area, an emergency exit sign, a safe walkway, or machine guards.  Safety has become a standard that should never be lowered and there is good reason for that.

EXAIR designs all of our products to be safe and they meet or exceed OSHA standards that are directed toward compressed air safety.  The first is to ensure that an operator or maintenance worker will not be injured through air impinging their skin should they come into contact with an EXAIR product.   This OSHA standard is 29 CFR1910.242(b) claiming that all point of use compressed air products must be regulated to have less than 30 psig of dead end pressure.   This directive is critical for worker safety and the way many blowoffs skirt by is to cross drill holes in the end of the blowoff.

Cross drilled holes may satisfy the dead end pressure standard but it does not address OSHA’s next important compressed air standard about noise exposure, OSHA standard 29CFR1910.95(a).  The allowable noise level standard combined with 30 psig dead end pressure will render many home made or retail nozzles near useless because few, if any, meet both standards.  Again, EXAIR has engineered and designed our Super Air Nozzles to permit 80 psig inlet pressure and still meet or exceed both of these OSHA standards so that the work can still be done by the operators while remaining safe and retaining their hearing.

For a better explanation and demonstration of how our nozzles meet these standards please see the video below.

While I use nozzles and cross drilled pipes as examples within this blog these safety features are designed into every product that EXAIR offers.  This is due to the fact that OSHA, NIOSH, and the CDC do not delineate between a blow gun, blow off within a machine, or even a Cabinet Cooler System.  If the device is powered by compressed air then the two key OSHA standard are in effect due to the inherit dangers of compressed air.

I encourage you now to walk through your facility and try to listen or spot compressed air points of use within your facility.  Then, I ask you to call, chat, e-mail, or tweet an Application Engineer here at EXAIR and let us help you determine the most efficient and safest product to get the work done.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF