Tag: refurb

Care and Feeding Of Your Reversible Drum Vac

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

EXAIR’s Reversible Drum Vac couldn’t be easier to operate. Thread it in to the 3/4 NPT vent connection on your drum lid, install the Standpipe & Hose on the 2 NPT bung, hook up a compressed air line to it, and you’re in business. As long as your compressed air is clean & moisture free, your Reversible Drum Vac will run like new for a long, long time.

Should you start to see a decrease in performance, though, the first thing you’ll want to do is verify the compressed air supply, especially if something’s changed:

  • Did you get a new hose? The Reversible Drum Vac uses 19 SCFM @80psig for rated performance. That’ll require a 3/8″ ID hose, assuming a length of no more than about 20ft.
  • Are there any restrictions in the line? The usual suspects are clogged filters, partially closed valves, or push-to-connect quick-connect fittings.
  • Are there any vacuum leaks in the hose, its cuffs, the drum, or either threaded connection? If the lid’s removable, is that gasket intact?
Pro tip: a pressure gauge, right at the inlet, will give you instant indication of an air supply issue with your RDV (or any compressed air-operated product.)

If you’ve eliminated all of those potential problems, it’s time to take a look at the Reversible Drum Vac itself. The Reversible Drum Vac has tight internal passages that contamination from even the cleanest compressed air systems can build up in, over time. Good news is, we made it super easy to disassemble & clean, and better news: this almost always restores it to as-new performance. We even have a video that walks you through it:

You may be surprised not at how much, but how little contamination you find inside the Reversible Drum Vac. We offer factory refurbishment service for them as well…the procedure in the video is step-by-step what that service consists of, except we also replace the Shim, O-Rings, & Float, and when we reassemble it, we verify performance on the same fixture that every single new Reversible Drum Vac that we build gets tested on. Recently, a customer sent a Reversible Drum Vac in for refurbishment services after we’d spent some time talking on the phone, exchanging emails, and even a brief Engineering Consultation web meeting, troubleshooting their loss of vacuum. I was particularly curious about this one, so when it came in, I tested it (on our calibrated test fixture) for performance, and found it was only generating about 22% of rated vacuum, and only 17% of rated flow. I figured it was clogged (with a capital CLOGGED) so I match marked the body & plug (just like we show in the video) and took it apart:

I was frankly surprised at how little contamination (which appeared to be rust from the customer’s compressed air piping system) caused such a dramatic loss of vacuum.

We then completed the Refurbishment Service and tested it again. Performance was verified to be within specification for a new High Lift Reversible Drum Vac.

I offer to share the Cleaning & Refurbishing video with just about anyone who calls to discuss performance (or lack thereof) of their Reversible Drum Vac. Some still want to send theirs in for Refurbishment Service, and that’s fine. If you have a Reversible Drum Vac that’s not working properly, I’m here to help you get the most out of our products — any of them — give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Lessons From Our Past

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

My first motorcycle was given to me by a friend of my brother who knew I just wanted to ride and, at the same time, knew I didn’t have the means to buy anything rideable. It came with some stipulations: there wasn’t a key, and it didn’t run. It was given to him by someone else, and the best part was that it actually had a service manual and a title.

1 – Camera phone / my first motorcycle

The bike was a 1984 Kawasaki KZ440 LTD. The issue was, rust in the gas tank had clogged the carb, and then it sat for years with the fuel in it. I had never attempted to rebuild a carburetor and had only heard horror stories. With my basic set of tools and the bike stored at my then-girlfriend’s house, I took the carbs off and figured, how hard could the repair be? I took everything apart, cleaned it all, or so I thought, put it back together, and it didn’t work. So then I took the carbs to a shop, and they warned me they couldn’t get them fully adjusted, but they were running. So I installed them back and found out I had to block off some of the intake, and it ran like a dream. Well, until you sat at idle, because then gas would leak out of the overflow onto the exhaust. I didn’t care, and I rode that bike for two years until the electric starter went out, and I worked on it continuously. Finally, I was able to purchase a fuel-injected bike and swore off carbs. Well, I was wrong. I now attempt to bring old equipment back to life for fun.

Well, last night, in between delivering the kids to Young Life and troubleshooting a car, I also had a carb off my dad’s John Deere 322 with electric choke. The tractor wasn’t running, he needed to get his garden tilled, and this tractor was the only way to do that. He brought me just the carb, and with this being a single-carb 3-cylinder motor, it is pretty simple. Having access to a friend with an ultrasonic cleaner makes it even easier. I opened the carb up and left the two halves fully assembled, then into an ultrasonic cleaner that was filled with piping-hot water and dish soap. No harsh cleaners; from shared experience of others, I have found that good old dish soap and hot water are all that is needed most of the time to clean these parts up.

That is some dirty water, and it had only been about 15 minutes in the cleaner.

After about 45 minutes in the cleaner, I took it out and checked all the jets with a light and a carb brush. Everything looked clean, I went and picked up some new bolts to hold the halves together, and sent them back home with my dad. He called me the next day and gave me the good news that the tractor ran better than it ever has.

All cleaned up, new bolts, and ready for testing.

The entire process made me realize that a carburetor is not far off from a couple of EXAIR products that we offer for refurbishment. Some of the products that we frequently refurbish for some customers are the EXAIR Air Knives and the Reversible Drum Vacs. These refurbishments are often the result of the environment and a failure in the filtration of the compressed air. The best part is that we will evaluate the products for free, determine if they can be repaired or refurbished, and then provide a quote for the process all within a few days of the item getting here. We also offer free videos of how to do things like clean the RDV for free through this blog.

Obviously, at some point, the filter and/or pretreatment for this compressed air supply failed and was not monitored. You can see the outline of the patented shim on the throat of this Super Air Amplifier.

Take this Super Air Amplifier, for instance. The system came in for the issue of underperformance, and we had already discussed with the customer how their filtration had failed about a year ago. They wanted to see what could bring this unit back to life. As soon as we saw pictures of it, we knew that the plenum was clogged up with debris.

If you have any EXAIR product that you think is not performing at an optimal level, please contact an Application Engineer today. If the product cannot be refurbished or repaired, we will give you a replacement option as well. The best part is, stock products ship the same day on orders received by 2 PM ET.

1 – Kris Krug – Camera phone / my first motorcycle – retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kawasaki_Z440_LTD.jpg, 8/17/2005

O-Rings, Seals, Gaskets, Maintenace, Filtration – They All Matter

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll say it again. You can’t teach experience. This was told to me by a mentor at a previous job and of course, younger me thought, “Yeah, yeah I know all I need to know.”  Well, younger me was an idiot and learned many things through experience. Sometimes I am still a slow learner and eventually, I remember those experiences and make decisions based on them. So what does this have to do with o-rings, seals, and gaskets?

I’m in the midst of a light construction project in my house and have reached a stage where some tools that I do not have would come in handy and make the job faster. Younger me would have justified purchasing a new one, experienced me understands a budget and reached out to my network of friends and a good friend said they had the tool I needed. This was a compressed air powered framing nail gun. Straight through nailing, no-problem, toe-nailing, no-problem, this thing won’t break a sweat and your arms will be stronger by the time you are done using it while your thumbs are screaming thank you for not smashing me a hundred times.

The Framing Nail Gun in question

This loan did come with two conditions, one was, he didn’t have any nails to give with it. This was not a problem as I wouldn’t expect a friend to give me free fasteners with a tool loan. The second is the one that concerned me, he said, it does leak a little air but it should still shoot just fine. After working in the compressed air industry for over a decade I have experienced this many times. At that point I knew if you could hear it, chances were it was a bad leak. Upon further inspection, there was a cylinder gasket and rubber spring that were in pieces.

Old Spring Bumper and Main Cylinder Gasket

Gasket pieces and dirty air can result in catastrophic failures.

Nothing that a trip to a local business couldn’t take care of.  A few new parts and discussion with their knowledgeable staff and I had the information needed to rebuild this nail gun to functioning status.

New vs. Old

Oddly enough, my experience and expertise with how the EXAIR products like the No-Drip Air Atomizing Liquid Spray Nozzles operate and how to rebuild them, provided a good foundation about how this tool worked. This repair ended up being very similar to the rebuild on a No-Drip Spray Nozzle.

This story is two-fold, filtration could have prevented a lot of the damage to this gun. This gun uses a good amount of air volume at an expedient pace so keeping it clean and clear of debris helps extend the lifetime of internal parts.  See my video on what happens without filtration below.

The second part is that maintaining and understanding processes to clean/rebuild are crucial to sustainable function of a machine. The cleaning process for this gun was fairly straightforward and using the correct lubricant for reassembly was another critical role. This culminated in a framing nail gun that can now be used to further my project and will more than likely live another decade before needing a rebuild again. That is if filtration and proper lubrication are followed.

Had I not obtained experiences throughout my career that helped me to understand how this tool functioned, the worth of a reliable network of vendors, and the necessity to complete tasks that take me out of my comfort zone I wouldn’t be in the place I am today. Because I have the experience and the network to ask for help it enables me to keep machines running that could have cost valuable production hours had this been a production environment.

EXAIR stocks rebuild kits, gaskets, shims, and parts for all of our product lines which may require a repair. For products which need to be cleaned in order to return back to new performance, we have the instructions or can do it for you here. From time to time they may need a repair or refurb in order to keep functioning at peak performance. If you want to build your trusted network or learn more about how to rebuild or clean EXAIR products, contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Video Blog: How To Rebuild Pressure Regulators

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Today’s video blog is a how-to on rebuilding EXAIR pressure regulators.   Regulators can wear out over time and extensive adjustment as well as if they are not used on a clean compressed air supply.  If you have any questions on an EXAIR product, please contact an Application Engineer.

Thanks for watching!

 

 

Brian Farno
Application Engineer Manager
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF