Tag: remove dust

Several Small Air Knives Remove Dust From Robot

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

We often are successful using a Super Air Knife to blow off product traveling on a conveyor or drying bottles in a labeling application. While these are common uses, sometimes we get a unique application that isn’t as clear cut a solution and requires several units and strategic placement to achieve the best result.

SAK drying parts on conveyor
Super Air Knife drying stamped parts on a conveyor

This was the case recently as I was working with a robotics company that was needing to contain debris inside a vessel as they removed a robot. They were needing to blow dust off all sides of the robot but had limited mounting space available to cover the round, 24″ diameter opening. Originally, they were considering using (4) 24″ Super Air Knives and mounting the units in a square pattern but were concerned that some parts of the robot wouldn’t be treated effectively and the air consumption might be too great.

I recommended they use (8) of our 9″ Super Air Knives and mount the units in an octagon type pattern around the opening. This setup would allow them to blow off the entire circumference of the opening, treating all sides of the robot from a relatively equal distance to achieve consistent results, as it is removed from the vessel. By going to several smaller knives, they would reduce the compressed air usage, making the operation more efficient. In addition, since they were only needing to blow dust off the robot, using a pressure regulator, they may be able to operate the knives at a lower pressure, further reducing the overall air consumption.

SAK
Our most efficient Air Knife, providing a high velocity airflow across the entire length of the knife. Available from 3″ up to 108″ in single piece construction.

If you have a specific application that requires assistance, please contact an Application Engineer at 1-800-903-9247.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

 

Outside Your Comfort Zone?

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Over the past several months I have found myself more and more outside of my comfort zone throughout the day.  This feeling has been declining over the past few months, however, as the situations which cause discomfort seem to come up more and more every day so my comfort zone is constantly expanding. I like comfort zones, but also understand that being outside of them helps me to learn and gain new experience. I bring this up because I had a customer come in yesterday so they could be shown a demonstration of an EXAIR Super Air Knife.

Now, customers coming in is not a problem at all, I spoke with him last week and we discussed the application.  This time, it was outside of his comfort zone so he wanted to come in.  Well, when I got the call I had a visitor I grabbed a single business card and walk out to find that there were four gentlemen waiting to see me, not just one.  Still, not a problem. I showed them to our fully stocked demo room and we proceeded to discuss their application.  They were hoping to make the environment their employees work in a little cleaner.  They had new down draft work benches which had three sides on it.

The problem the team was having is that all their operators were using hand-held grinders to deburr parts as they were manufactured.   The downdraft table was added to help prevent the dust and debris from getting all over the operators, however it wasn’t working good enough.  So they started looking and found EXAIR Super Air Knives.  They didn’t believe that a Super Air Knife would move enough air and still be quiet enough to have an operator sitting at the station, so they drove down to our facility and I showed them all the benefits that a Super Air Knife has.  This was all based off a 6″ Aluminum Super Air Knife I had handy.  I then swapped the stock .002″ thick shim out with a .001″ thick shim.  They were amazed at how quiet the Super Air Knife was (with either shim) and how the flow of air was enough to disturb and direct dust but not over powering and blowing parts off the table. LSAN I could definitely see that they were impressed by the simplicity of working with the Super Air Knife and the performance it achieved. But alas, they were still trying to figure out how a 48″ would work, so I went straight out and got a 110048 off the shelf and hooked it up for them.  That was all that they needed in order to really get the wheels in their heads spinning into overdrive.   They all left with my contact information and catalogs in tow but I didn’t hear them stop talking about the possibilities until they were in the car.

The fact of the matter is that they were outside of their comfort zone and had no concept of how you could make compressed air blow in a laminar sheet to help contain dust in a down draft work bench.  Once they saw how easy the Super Air Knife was to hook up and mount they were instantly back into their comfort zone of making their employees happy and safe. If you have some applications using compressed air and you are well out of your zone, contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
 @EXAIR_BF