Tag: Super Air Wipe

Super Air Wipe Cools, Cleans and Dries Extruded Shapes

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We have many customers that use the manufacturing process of extrusion to make their various type of products.  EXAIR has an Intelligent Compressed Air Product that works very well with these processes to provide a drying, blowoff and cooling function.

Many types of products are produced via the process of extrusion, which is to shape (as metal or plastic) by forcing through a die.  There are many advantages to the extrusion process, including it being a continuous operation, it runs at high speeds, is good for high volume and low production costs, as well as many other factors.

The extrusion process typically requires heating of the metal billet or melting of the plastic to a high enough temperature to allow it to flow and be shaped as it it forced through the die. After the product has passed through the die and has been shaped it must be cooled and this is usually achieved by passing the it through a water bath.  Once the material has been cooled, it needs to be dried to remove the moisture, before the extrusion enters the next stage of processing, like getting cut to length or printed upon.

The EXAIR Super Air Wipe is ideal for blowoff, drying, cleaning and cooling of continuous materials such as extrusions, pipe, cable and more.

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The Super Air Wipe has a split design which offers easy clamping around the surface of the material, eliminating the need for threading. All Super Air Wipe models include stainless steel screws and shims.  Stainless Steel wire braided hose which is plumbed to each half, is included on sizes up to 4″ to simplify installation and plumbing. Aluminum models are rated to 400°F and the stainless steel models for temperatures up to 800°F.  Models are available in size from 1/2″ to 11″ Throat Diameters.

The Super Air Wipe provides a uniform, 360° air stream that is ideal for drying and cooling of extruded materials.

To discuss your application and how an EXAIR Super Air Wipe can benefit you extrusion process, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or one of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Brian Bergmann
Application Engineer

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Controlling Supply Pressure, Controlling Flow

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“What is the lowest operating pressure and what kind of force can I expect?”. This is common question we get at EXAIR and the simple answer – it depends. Okay, that’s not so simple and it does matter what EXAIR product you are considering.

Take for example some of the vortex tube based cooling products, like our Cold Gun for dry machining and Cabinet Cooler Systems to purge and cool electrical enclosures. These particular products are designed to operate at 80-100 PSIG for optimal performance and efficient cooling capacity. They can be operated at lower pressure but their effectiveness and performance are reduced.

Most other products, and the problem they are solving vary in the amount of pressure needed for success. In many cases, the simplest method would be to use a pressure regulator. By incorporating a pressure regulator in a blowoff application, for example using our Air Nozzles or Safety Air Guns,  adjusting the supply pressure is the easiest way to control the output velocity and force of the airflow. Many applications don’t require full line pressure to achieve the desired result and operating at lower pressure provides a way to reduce compressed air usage and lower energy costs.

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Pressure Regulator with gauge for simple supply adjustment

Another way some of EXAIR’s products allow for easy adjustment is by incorporating a replaceable shim. Take for example our Air Knives – All of our Air Knives are shipped from stock with a .002″ shim installed. We offer Shim Sets for our aluminum knives that include a .001″, .003″ and .004″ shim  that allows you to either reduce the gap and cut your air usage and force in half. By installing the thicker shims, you can increase these properties by 1.5 times for the .003″ shim or double by installing the .004″. For our stainless steel knives, we offer shim sets which include (3) .002″ which can best stacked to provide more force and flow.

sak-shims
Super Air Knife shims

Our Air Amplifiers feature patented shims that allow for the similar adjustments, resulting in large volumes of outlet airflow.

Super Air Amplifer w- shims
Super Air Amplifier and optional shim set

Our Air Wipes, which perform similar to our Air Knives but produce a 360″ ring of air to treat the surface of a hose , pipe, tube, etc. , are also shipped with .002″ shim installed with optional shim sets available.

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Shims for our Super and Standard Air Wipes

We also offer replaceable shims for our 1″ and 2″ Flat Super Air Nozzles for those applications requiring more of a focused airflow that needs that extra bit of force, like when trying to blow heavy grit off of a chain or blow reject parts from a conveyor.

Model 1126 (Zinc Aluminum) or 1126SS (316SS) 1" Flat Super Air Nozzles (left) have replaceable shims (middle), same as Model 1122 (Zinc Aluminum or Model 1122SS 2" Flat Super Air Nozzles (right.)
1″ and 2″ Flat Super Air Nozzles provide laminar airflow that can be easily adjusted.

As you can see, there are some viable options to fine tune your EXAIR product to provide the optimal performance. If you need any assistance or would like to discuss the specifics of a particular application, give us a call.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

 

 

 

 

 

Adjustability=Flexibility=Wide Ranging Performance

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Recently, I moved into a new house, and it didn’t have bathroom vent fans.  In order to prevent mold and mildew growth from the humid shower air; we decided to install them ourselves.  Going to the local home goods store, we were faced with a wall of options, with factors such as noise level, CFM rating and of course price.  Going over the myriad of possibilities was headache inducing and of course, the bathroom size was borderline between a small and mid-size unit. The decision came down to – pay more and oversize it or risk installing an undersized unit.  If only they made a unit to cover a wide variety of conditions.

Here at EXAIR, we make many types of Intelligent Compressed Air Products.  Many times, when we are talking to customers, the right size or performance needed isn’t quite clear.  Fortunately, many of the products we make are flexible, and allow for adjustability and increased range of performance to best match the specific need of the application.

For example, The Super Air Knives and Super Air Wipes have available Shim Sets to increase or decrease the air gap and change the force and flow.  The shims are easily installed, and come in a wide choice of sizes. Super Air Knives are available, from stock, in aluminum, 303SS, 316SS, and PVDF. Super Air Wipes are made from aluminum or 303 SS.

Super Air Wipe

The Super Air Amplifiers also have available patented Shim Sets to fix the air flow at a predetermined setting. Adjustable Air Amplifiers have an infinitely adjustable air gap which can easily be set to match the application needs if a predetermined flow is not preferred. Adjustable Air Amplifiers also have a smaller footprint than Super Air Amplifiers and can also use the aforementioned shims to preset the air flow in applications where space is limited. These are available in 303 stainless steel and aluminum. We also have a high temperature option.

adjustable Air Amplifier
Adjustable Air Amplifier

Within our already enormous and flexible Air Nozzles & Jets product line, the Flat Super Air Nozzles have available Shim Sets to provide the ability to adjust the force and flow for blowoff or cleaning operation.  The model 1009 Adjustable Air Nozzle has an adjustable gap setting, allowing you to “tune in” the force and flow to meet the application requirement.  Also, the Adjustable Air Jet provides an adjustable gap setting to control the air flow performance. Flexibility also comes from the available materials of zinc/aluminum, aluminum, 303SS, 316SS and PEEK thermoplastic.

2″ Flat Super Air Nozzle
Stainless Steel Adjustable Air Jet

For vacuum generation, the Adjustable E-Vac allows for the vacuum and flow rate to be easily adjusted.  With a simple turn of the unit, the vacuum and flow levels can be changed to overcome porosity and increase or decrease the lifting power.

Adjustable EVac
Adjustable E-Vac

There are several other Intelligent Compressed Air Products that EXAIR manufactures that offer the adjustability and flexibility, such as Vortex Tubes and Adjustable Spot Coolers.

If only EXAIR manufactured bathroom fans, I could have ensured making the right choice and be able to match the performance to exactly meet my application needs.

Brian Bergmann
Application Engineer
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Super Air Wipe Helps in Testing Wire Insulation

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

A cable manufacturer sent me videos of his operation as they needed to improve their efficiency in removing water from the surface of the insulation. Their system began with the insulation being applied to the outside of the wire cable, being dipped into a water trough to harden the insulation, travel through the blow-off device, then into a spark tester.  The spark tester checks the insulation for imperfections.  Also called a hi-pot tester (high-potential), a high voltage is used to create a large potential across the insulation.  Any defects in the insulation can be detected, but it is very sensitive to surface contamination.  Being that the water is very conductive, it had to be removed or it would give a false result.  They were using a home-made circular blowing device (photo below) to blow the water off after dipping.  When they were at the higher line speeds, the blow-off device was not removing the water completely from the insulation.  This would cause the spark tester to alarm and stop production.

Home-made Air Wipe
Home-made Air Wipe

This company makes cables ranging from 10mm to 25mm in diameter. With various types of voltage ratings on the wire, the insulation was made with different types of materials and thicknesses.  So, the line speeds could range from 20 to 200 meter/minute.  Being that they needed a better way to remove the wire, they searched for wire and cable blow-off devices. They came across the Super Air Wipe from EXAIR.  The design of the Super Air Wipe blows compressed air at a 30 degree angle toward the center in a 360 degree air pattern, just like a cone.  It uses the Coanda effect to entrain as much ambient air into your compressed air to maximize force and efficiency.  Because of the variations in diameters and speeds, I suggested two different sizes, the model 2401 and model 2402.  The model 2401 has an I.D. of 1” (25mm), and it would work best with the cable diameters of 15mm and under.  The model 2402 has an I.D. of 2” (51mm), and it can handle the cables that are above 15mm in size. This pair of Super Air Wipes would give the customer the most consistent results no matter what line speeds that they ran.  With the split design of the Super Air Wipe, it makes it easy to clamp around the cable and change from one size to the other.

Super Air Wipe
Super Air Wipe

As they removed their home-made unit and attached the Super Air Wipes, they noticed a few things. The spark tester stopped getting false alarms.  This made the production process run smoother; even at the faster line speeds.  They noticed that the Super Air Wipe was much quieter.  With a decibel rating of 77 dBA, the nearby operators were very happy with this choice.  Also, they noticed that the Super Air Wipes used much less compressed air.  Because the design utilizes the “free” ambient air, less compressed air is required.  This would save them a lot of money in their electric bill and the stress on the compressed air system.  If your company needs to blow off cables, hoses, pipes, or any cylindrical type parts, the Super Air Wipe could be a great product for you.

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