Tag: static electricity

Ion Air Gun Used by the Quality Control Department

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

A Quality Control department had static issues when analyzing color swatches. Their production process was screen printing on polycarbonate sheets.  They had our Super Ion Air Knives and Ion Bars in their production process to remove static and debris.  During the die cutting operation, a color swatch was removed for QC to inspect.  They would use an instrument to verify the color and clarity.  During the inspection, they would periodically have a rejection.  In inspecting the swatches, they noticed a lot of debris that was collected on the surface.  This would affect the reading of the instrument.  They tried to wipe off the debris, but because of the static build-up on the surface, it was hard to remove all of it.  Being that they were familiar with EXAIR products, they contacted us and I suggested our Ion Air Gun.  The ions would remove the static while the air flow would remove the dust.  Once in use, the reliability of the inspection instrument was much improved.

Ion Air Gun
Ion Air Gun

One of our more versatile Static Eliminator products is the Ion Air Gun. You can turn the unit on and start blowing ionized air to remove static and contaminants from lenses, sheets, plastic wrap, plastic products and other materials holding a static charge.  It comes with a 3 meter cable to give you a long reach and a High Velocity Air Jet that produces a large amplification ratio to reduce the amount of compressed air use.  The ergonomic, light-weight, and rugged design makes it an effective air gun to remove both static and debris.

In this instance, the Ion Air Gun was a nice accessory for the QC department to clean surfaces before inspection. It made their job more effective and less time consuming.  If static is a big issue, you can always contact an Application Engineer for help.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Crank Up The Heat (and Static)

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

The outside temperature is beginning to drop which means the thermostat in my house is getting a workout. I don’t mind the colder temps but my wife on the other hand likes it pretty toasty during the winter months. I am usually downstairs in the living room, so I don’t feel the full effect of the increased heat but our house isn’t as fortunate. The majority of our house has hardwood floors so as the inside temperatures rise and the furnace brings in more of that dry outside air to heat up, it also dries out the hardwood which begins to separate and make a nice creaking sound. We started using humidifiers upstairs and on the main floor to replace some of the moisture lost due to the increased makeup air from the outside.

Another concern with dry air is it creates static electricity.  There are a ton of natural insulators in your house, like carpet or shoes with rubber soles just to name a few, that make it all too easy to build up a static charge and deliver a nice shock. Case in point, over the weekend I was downstairs working and asked our oldest son if he could help me out and get his baby brother out of the pack-n-play. Of course, without hesitation, (heavy sarcasm) he shuffled across the carpet and reached down for his brother, then ZAP! I actually heard the shock before the screams started! I quickly made the realization that I will soon be adding a third humidifier for downstairs as well!

Static electricity is a common nuisance in industrial settings also. It can lead to damaged product, shorting of electrical components, printing or labeling errors, spark generation or cause harmful shock to an operator. EXAIR offers a wide variety of Static Eliminators that are capable of neutralizing the surface static of a material or object to ensure proper operation in many manufacturing processes. For example, our Super Ion Air Knife is a great choice for printing/labeling applications or cleaning a web. With applications requiring more of a focused airflow, we offer our Ion Air Cannon or Ion Air Jet. The Ion Air Gun is the perfect choice for a manual, surface treatment. We also offer our Ionizing Bars and Ionizing Point for close proximity static elimination, where compressed air isn’t available.

An easy way to pinpoint the location and level of static is by using our Model # 7905 Digital Static Meter. The Digital Static Meter is a handheld, portable device that is capable of reading static within 1″ of the surface, up to  +/- 20 kV with 5% accuracy. Once the static has been located, we can then make the best recommendation for a Static Eliminator that will meet the application requirements.

Static Meter
Easy to use, Digital Static Meter to pinpoint static charge. Calibrated to NIST standards.

If static is a concern in any of your processes, or if you need help in making the best selection, please contact an application engineer for assistance.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

Don’t Let Winter Shock You: One Danger to Quality that You Cannot Forget

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

Winter is coming. The humidity will drop. Electrostatic discharges will rise. We will all be shocked again, and again –  it’s a reality of manufacturing processes in the winter and can cause such a nuisance.

Static Electricity is created by materials such as paper, plastic or textiles rubbing, peeling, or sliding across a surface. Materials normally contain and equal number of positive and negative charges. As the two surfaces come into contact electrons will transfer from one material to another.  If these surfaces are not electrically grounded, they will gather a charge.  For instance, if you rub your sock across the carpeted floor before you reach out and touch your kid sister over the holidays, you may be able to shock her enough to take her eyes off of Instagram.  This is the same phenomenon that you can also see in lightning storms on a meteorological scale.

Electrostatic discharges may only be a nuisance to you and me as we climb in and out of cars, open door knobs, or touch our computers, but for a number of industries the rise in static will make producing quality products in  a timely manner significantly more difficult. Printing, packaging and slitting operations can be stopped or ruined by static. Some of these applications require a very long static eliminators between 60 and 108 inches.

Ion Bar
Two long ion bars remove static from laminated panel.

 

For wide web applications EXAIR builds Long Ion Bars up to 108″ in length. These bars can clean up printing errors caused by static in large inkjet printers.  They can eliminate static before or after a slitting operation. Also, they can eliminating static before painting or staining.  These bars will be invaluable to the paper, textile, film or plastic industry as winter continues to lower the humidity.

2014_exairPOYfinalistG_300px
Plant Engineering Product of the Year

 

The folks at Plant Engineering have nominated EXAIR Long Ion Bars for Product of the Year. If you are currently using the Long Ion Bar or another EXAIR product, please go vote for our products in the Plant Engineering Product of the Year Award.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
@Dave_Woerner
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com

 

Cleaning Honeycomb with a Super Ion Air Knife

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

This week I worked with a gentleman, who was having a problem cleaning a honeycomb web after a sawing operation. The honeycomb was a paper based material, and the sawing operation would create a large amount of dust. This dust filled his honeycomb, which made the product appear inconsistent to his customer on incoming inspections. This was leading to the customer questioning the quality of the product.

honeycomb

His process featured a blower that was incredibly noisy and still left some material on the product.  During the winter, the problem was further exasperated by the dry air, which led to the dust being statically charged and clinging to the honeycomb even more.  In spite of his quality and production issues, the customer was looking to expand his production to meet demand. The blower he was using had been custom-made for his machine, so he was open to any ideas. Also, the blower had no way of removing static electricity from the material.

I recommended he use an 84″ Super Ion Air Knife to clean his 80″ honeycomb web. The customer mounted the air knife perpendicular to the surface of the honeycomb 4″ away from the surface. One of my concerns with the operation was creating even flow. To do this on a long span, I recommended he use have the plumbing kit installed at EXAIR, which allows the air knife to create an even flow along the length of the knife y preventing any restrictions which may occur from poorly sized inlet fittings, hose or tube.  The Super Ion Air Knife cleaned the honey comb with ease, while maintaining a quiet 69 dBA, and without the expensive maintenance required by the blower.

PlumbingKit-bg

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
Davewoerner@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_DW