Tag: Swivel connections

Super Air Nozzles and Swivel Fittings

Published on by johnball2014Leave a comment

EXAIR manufactures a variety of Intelligent Compressed Air™ products that can cool, clean, coat, convey, and conserve.  They’re designed with efficiency, OSHA safety, and high quality in mind.  One of our best products for replacing open pipes for blow-off is our Super Air Nozzles.  They will improve the safety for your personnel and save you much money by reducing the compressed air usage.  The payback period is typically less than two months.  What could make these products even better?  Making them adjustable, with the ability to aim them exactly where you need them!  EXAIR offers Swivel Fittings with our Air Nozzles and Jets to achieve this.  In this blog, I will cover the features and benefits of both products.

EXAIR’s engineered Air Nozzles and Jets are designed to optimize your compressed air system.  Inefficient solutions are commonly used in the form of inexpensive nozzles, and sometimes even worse, open pipes and tubes.  An open pipe or tube, even if “flattened”, wastes an excessive amount of compressed air and is not OSHA compliant.  The wasted compressed air can create problems in your facility due to unnecessarily high energy costs as well as pressure loss in your system, affecting other pneumatic processes.  An open pipe or tube will also produce sound levels in excess of 100 dBA.  At these noise levels, according to OSHA, permanent hearing damage can occur in just 2 hours of exposure.  If one of your goals is to reduce air consumption and improve safety in your facility, look no further than EXAIR’s engineered Air Nozzles and Jets.

To add versatility to the EXAIR Air Nozzles and Jets, we offer Swivel Fittings.  Swivel Fittings are a great way to securely install and aim EXAIR nozzles. They are dynamic, as they can be adjusted and set to a flow direction with 50-degrees of movement.  They are made from stainless steel for corrosion resistance, with ports ranging from 4mm to 1” NPT.  If you need positioning for precise blowing or adjustments for different locations, the Swivel Fittings could be a nice addition to include with your EXAIR Super Air Nozzles and Jets.

Companies that think about safety when using blowoff devices will evaluate the items that they purchase.  Some of the more common fines for OSHA violations deal with loud noises and dead-end pressure.  To avoid any future fines, it is important and more economical to purchase EXAIR products.  If you would like to improve safety and save money with your current blow-off devices, an Application Engineer at EXAIR can help you select the appropriate items.

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

Photo: Safety First by Succo. Pixabay License

The Best Angle is the Try-Angle

Published on by bdwagesLeave a comment

The importance of Swivel Fittings for your Air Nozzles

Hey there. So I was asked to write about our Swivel Fittings for Air nozzles. My first thought was, hmmm isn’t everything you need to know about a swivel fitting in the name Swivel Fitting? I started writing and then editing, and then rewriting, and then more editing. I don’t want my blog to be boring and just skimmed over, or worse not read at all!

Then just like a Mike Tyson uppercut it hit me. It’s all about the angle. The angle that you are blowing the air (and for me the angle I am taking in writing this blog) means a lot.

We talk a lot about using air intelligently. Your compressed air is in fact one of your largest utility expenses. My colleague just wrote a Blog about air being your 4th Utlity – read that here. There are many ways to control this expense such as: finding air leaks with our Ultrasonic Leak Detector, using the Electronic Flow Control and turning air off when not in use, using the lowest pressure and volume of air necessary to accomplish the task, just to mention a few. One thing that gets overlooked a lot is the importance of blowing air at the perfect angle to achieve the maximum effect.

Now, some of you remember how to do all of the equations to find this precise angle and that is wonderful, however most of us will struggle with these calculations as there are so many variants involved. Even if we did the math we would then need to engineer the exact fixture to hold the chosen nozzle in this precise place. So what do we do?

Let’s Fast forward to the point where you have already chosen and installed the best EXAIR Air Nozzle for your application. You are confident that the pressure, the flow, the SCFM, the pattern, and the material are all perfect. You install this on your set fixture, and OMG it’s not producing the desired effect. You then realize that everything is right about this, other than the nozzle is just not hitting the surface at the correct angle. All of our nozzles are built to attach and blow straight, inline with any fitting. The stationary fitting could be on a machine, a pipe, a hose or even an air gun. You then realize that for maximum performance – you need this nozzle to be angled off of the fitting, not straight.

We understand that your application is unique to you.  And your solution should be just as unique. Your distance and method to mount the nozzles or jets is unique to your application. Your system’s air pressure with all its power (or weakness) is all you. Your environment is just that – yours. It would be hard to believe that a straight nozzle will always be the canned solution. It would be a stretch to say that the exact angle that you need to blow air is going to always be straight. In fact, I would venture to say that a nozzle by itself is rarely the best solution. When using compressed air intelligently, we need to look at all the – umm – angles…. and one of the most important aspects that gets overlooked is finding the exact angle necessary for the perfect air movement in your unique application.  A few degrees can make a big difference in the overall efficiency of air flow. 

Now it comes down to finding the perfect angle. You can do all that math if you want. Or you can test several different angles very easily. This is what I like to call the TRY-ANGLE. This brings us full circle to the Swivel Fittings. This is the best way to find the precise angle to solve your process problem. EXAIR’s swivel fittings permit a movement of 25 degrees from center axis, for a total movement of 50 degrees. They are available from M4 x 0.5mm female X 1/8 MNPT through 1 MNPT X 1 FNPT.

Sometimes we over engineer and think projects to death. We spend hours thinking and miss the window of opportunity to DO! Many times the simplest solution is the best solution. Yes, sometimes it can be this easy… When buying nozzles, it’s worth the little extra to get these little gems. Some times 10° makes all the difference in the world…

Thank you for stopping by. Please reach out for assistance with any of your process problems, chances are – we have a solution.

Brian Wages, Application Engineer

EXAIR Corporation
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Boxer image courtesy of Mohamed_Hassan Pixaby License
Math image courtsey of Geralt Pixaby License