Tag: tool cooling

Yet another home use for a few EXAIR products

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

I feel as though my wife thinks I am the king of hobbies.  I know I have blogged before about motorcycles and several other activities that I enjoy.  So far I have found a use for an E-Vac to bleed the brakes on my Suzuki.  Now I have had my eyes opened to the art of wood working.

You see my brother in-law makes a living through custom wood working.  One day, he showed me a quick easy project – a pen.  That’s right, a plain old writing utensil.   So I followed his instructions and about an hour and a half later I had a pen that I had made all on my own. (The pencil shown below was just turned last night)

Flash forward several months and I am now making pens and pencils in my basement.  After watching the local sites and papers for cheap equipment I now have a wood lathe and have moved some of my metal working equipment to make room for wood working equipment.  The funny thing is I have still found several uses for EXAIR products.

The first is on my drill press, a very common application for us in industrial environments.  This would be the perfect spot for a Mini Spot Cooler.  I have a compressor that is just large enough to run it at full capacity and so when I am drilling through a 3 – 4″ long blank I don’t get the burning wood smell or melting acrylic.  It won’t even scream like a banshee when the bit gets in full depth of cut. (Below the Mini Spot Cooler is used to cool an abrasive cut off wheel.)

This isn’t the only place an EXAIR product can be used.   I could also use the Mini Spot Cooler or a Cold Gun on the lathe when turning acrylic blanks to keep the tool and cutting point cool.  I could even use a Mini Chip Vac to  vacuum the chips from the lathe as they are being made.  Not to mention that the 0.1 micron filter is fine enough to catch the sanding dust made when finishing the pens.

So whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional, EXAIR will have a product that will fit your needs or help make your work a little easier, safer, and quieter.  So feel free to give us a call and talk to an Application Engineer to discuss your application.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF 

PLAST 2012

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

At EXAIR we pride ourselves in being a manufacturer.  In addition to the manufacturing process, obstacles and rewards, we also have a dedicated marketing staff.  Our marketing department has spent many late nights at the office to design and develop catalog information, product specific literature, and the excellent artwork we refer to on a daily basis.

Many of our followers are aware of our market presence overseas, and part of that market presence comes from our participation in trade shows.  These wonderful marketing materials and our meticulously engineered products will be displayed this May 8-12, front and center, at the PLAST exhibition in Milan, Italy.

The trade show in Milan will be my first international venture for EXAIR and I’m excited to make the trip with my colleague and superior, Ivan Banks.

If you have any interest in contacting EXAIR at the PLAST 2012 exhibition, we will be at stand B 61 on pavilion 24.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
leeevans@exair.com
@EXAIR_LE

Another Point of View

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

I came upon a quote from Richard Feynman a few days ago that was inspiring and lead to a great deal of thought.  As I thought more about Mr. Feynman, I felt a deep appreciation for his enthusiasm and continued approach to physics and mathematics.  One of the things that was recurrent among the interviews of Feynman, is that he was always interested in examining problems from a different point of view.

One of the most notable discussions on the subject was highlighted in an interviewed titled “Take the World from Another Point of View”.

At some point in this interview, Feynman recalls an exercise he used to do at the dinner table with his father where they would look at ordinary human activities as though they were Martians landing on Earth.  For example, we see it as a necessary part of life to sleep, but if we were of a mindset that didn’t need or know what sleep is, this would seem quite strange.  This way of thinking – using an unobstructed and inquisitive point of view for what is usually considered as universal – led to many of the solutions Feynman is credited with developing.

I like to use this way of thinking when working with applications that use EXAIR products.  Recently I worked with a gentleman in Kansas who is a Six Sigma Black Belt and had a desire to integrate EXAIR products into his machines.  He was quite knowledgeable about many areas of manufacturing and in particular, efficiency.  As we discussed the use of our product lines and dove more in depth into operation and compatibility in different environments, he made it a point to stress to me how eye opening our products can be to him and his clients.  The biggest paradigm shift using our products in this company has been with our Cold Guns and providing cooling without oil.

In the manufacturing facilities using his machines, this gentleman saw the repeated use and disposal of coolant.  After finding our product and realizing the cost savings of cooling the bits of CNC milling and drilling heads with the Cold Gun as compared to traditional oil based coolant, he was surprised to have never thought of the idea before.  It was a similar scenario to what Feynman described in his interview – given a different point of view, will the solution be the same?  In this scenario, as in many others, the views have changed.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
leeevans@exair.com
@exair_le

Mothers of Invention

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

“You see things and you say, ‘Why?’  But I dream things that never were & I say, ‘Why not?'” – George Bernard Shaw

It is said that necessity breeds invention, and I’m sure we all have our favorite examples. There are, of course, accidental inventions of some quite popular items.

Then there are the curious cases of inventions that await applications.  Hero’s Boiler jumps to my mind – the ancient Greeks used this device that converted the energy released by boiling water into rotary motion as a temple “wonder,” to illuminate the hearts of the faithful and allow them to “discover a divine truth lurking in the laws of the heavens.” (Ten Books on Architecture, Vetruvius, 1st Century BC)  It took almost two thousand years for the steam engine to come of age as the primary means of ocean-going vessel propulsion, as well as a most efficient means of electrical power generation.

Grilling enthusiasts (well, those like me who shun gas in favor of charcoal anyway), may know that the charcoal briquette was patented in the late 1800’s, but didn’t become viable until Ford Motor Company’s factory started providing tons and tons of the basic material needed for briquette production: scrap wood.  Henry Ford and a relative (man by the name of Kingsford) exploited this in one of the greatest recycling success stories ever.

Scientists at Bell Labs claim to have invented the transistor 20 years after a Canadian scientist filed a patent for one, but it was another 20 years before young boys all over America were able to stay up way past their bedtimes, listening to the play-by-play announcer of their favorite baseball team, on transistor radios hidden away under their pillows.  The technology behind faxes predates the telephone by 33 years.  And since you’re probably reading this on a computer screen, let’s not forget Babbage’s Analytical Engine.  That’s fascinating to me; the guy who “invented” the computer was alive when George Washington was President of the United States.

We get a lot of calls about a very popular item in the EXAIR product family – the Vortex Tube – especially this time of year.  This is a prime example of both an accidental invention, and one that predated its successful application.  The principle of operation was discovered by a French physics student in the 1920’s, while he was working on something completely different.  It was a number of years before the technology was successfully exploited, but now, it’s a staple of our Compressed Air Product catalog.  If you want to protect sensitive electronic components in an enclosure, our Cabinet Cooler Systems are an inexpensive, easily installed, low-maintenance solution.  Would you like to replace a mist/spray liquid coolant system with a clean, dry alternative?  Check out our Cold Gun Aircoolant Systems.  Anywhere you need localized cooling (soldering, welding, brazing, etc.), we can help you incorporate a Vortex Tube into your system.  Our Adjustable Spot Coolers and Mini Coolers are ready to use, out of the box, with magnetic swivel bases for quick and easy setup.

If you’ve got a favorite accidental invention, or invention-before-its-time, leave me a comment, either below, or on this blog’s Facebook post.  Or, if you have a heat removal application in mind, give us a call.  Send us an email to techelp@EXAIR.com.  Or drop by our website for a chat.  We’d love to hear from you!

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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