Tag: vacuum generator

Golfing with EXAIR Products

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Well it’s that time of year again, at the time of writing this blog thousands are lining up in Augusta Georgia ready to see the 87th edition of the Masters Tournament! Some go for the high level of talent and golf that is played over four days. Others go for the cheap Concessions foods! I mean come on $1.50 for an egg salad and Pimento Cheese Sandwich! Sign me up!

Photo by Best of Both on Flicker.com

But here at EXAIR we happen to have a few things that can help you with your Golf Game!

  1. Forgot your Tee? No Worries we have you covered with our E-Vac Vacuum Generators! Check out the video below! (They can also be used to suction cup the ball out of a Gators mouth, RIP Chubbs)

On a serous note, when you’re not using an E-Vac as a golf tee, they are very commonly used in applications for bag and package opening, label placement, vacuum forming, leak testing and pick and place applications.

EXAIR Also has accessories to round out vacuum cup systems including vacuum cups themselves, mufflers, check valves, vacuum tubing and fittings.

2. Stuck in a sand trap and really need to get it with in a foot to knock down that par? Again we have you covered the Line Vacs can convey your ball with in inches of the hole. So all you’ll have to do is just tap it in! (Just below the best clip of Happy Gilmore is the line vac conveying some golf balls!!)

While the line vac could help you take a few strokes off your golf game, they will also help you get rid of your buckets and ladders, for filling and moving product. These small units can move large volumes of material.

They are a perfect solution for moving things like plastic pellets, textiles, food products, pills/tablets, granules and much more. By adding a small amount of compressed air through the directed nozzles on the Line Vac, you will create a vacuum on one end and a high flow of air on the other to lift and or push your material up and over to a new location.

Even though I would love to pull a air compressor behind my cart and see what people say at my local course! Both the Line vacs and E-Vacs have great industry uses. If you have anything you need to move or convey give us a call. We have a team of application engineers here M-F 7AM-4PM!

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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Why doesn’t my “XYZ” work?

Published on by bdwagesLeave a comment
Pic by PoseMuse licensed by Pixabay

You’ve probably been there. You install a new Super Air Knife, or an EasySwitch Wet-Dry Vac (or any other product), and it doesn’t work as we promised. Or it works great for 2-3 years, and now it’s faltering. You have trouble shot everything you know to do. You’ve changed the filters, checked for leaks on the product, checked the connections, but still it is not performing as it was, or how it is supposed to. This is usually when I get the call, and more times than not, the issue is related to the air supply.

Whether this new item isn’t performing, or an older product has been working for 2 weeks, months, or years and stops, we first need to confirm the pressure. First, we need to make sure there is a T and pressure gauge at the point of use. Although psig is only one factor of the air flow, if it is too low (or too high in some cases) that is a definite problem. Without the proper psig, our tools will not function properly. If the psig is sufficient, and our product is not operating as claimed, the next thing we check is the SCFM.

There are a few ways of finding the SCFM…one is very easy and reliable, and the other can get you close enough to realize if there is a problem or not. The easy way is by installing a Digital Flow Meter near the point of use. Although the most reliable, it is not always feasible or cost-effective to have these near every air application in your system.

Without the Flow Meter, we need to start looking for reasons why the SCFM is not there. Whether a new install or an existing one, we need to evaluate the air flow by starting with the basics. Let’s start by identifying how much air your application requires. For instance, a Super Air Knife consumes 2.9 SCFM per inch, so a 48″ Super Air Knife will use 139.2 SCFM (at standard operation), that is equivalent to a 35 HP compressor dedicated solely to this 1 product. Assuming your compressor is large enough to flow this amount of air, we need to see what other products are being utilized in the system as well. Does your overall system have enough air to run each product?

So your compressor is large enough, the next step is to look at your line size. To run 139.2 SCFM, you will need a 3/4″ line and that is if you are within 20 ft of the source (compressor). If you are 150 feet away, you will need 1 1/4″ lines, and so on. This is an issue that pops up often.

The next thing we look for is any type of restrictions on the line. Are your filter and oil separators sized properly? Were there new products / stations added to the line. Is the product itself being maintained properly? Is your Air clean and dry? Are there any other line restrictions that could be interfering with the flow?

If all of these things check out, our last course of action is to get the product back for evaluation. We will tear it apart, many times needing to destroy it to find the cause. But proudly, I must say that we rarely find a manufacturing defect, but we look hard just in case, because we want to know as well. We can usually show you the issue, and find the root cause. Our reputation and quality is the highest in the industry, and it is not something we take lightly. We want to find a defect if it exists, so that we can immediately address them, and head off any future issues.

If you have one of our products that isn’t functioning as you hoped, or just purchased one that isn’t up to par, please look at some of the items mentioned above. And as always, reach out to us and let us help f we can.

Thank you for stopping by,

Brian Wages

Application Engineer

EXAIR Corporation
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Cover photo by gerralt / 25503 and licensed by Pixabay

Porous and Non-Porous E-vac Generators

Published on by EricKuhnash@EXAIR.comLeave a comment

Having an injection molding background I saw many uses for parts pickers using many different sizes from 90 – to 3000 ton injection molding machines and a vast amount of part sizes and shapes that varied from items as small as dinner plates to as big as municipal refuse containers. I dealt mainly with non-porous applications but EXAIR offers both porous and non-porous E-vacs to accommodate wide range of part sizes and weights.

EXAIR has High Vacuum Generators for Non-Porous Applications with high vacuum units up to 27″ Hg (91 kPa) with vacuum flows up to 15.8 SCFM (447 SLPM). The plastic products I was moving were all non-porous, meaning air or liquids would not permeate into the surface of my product. Other examples of non-porous material including plastic sub-straights include glass, steel sheet, ceramics, vinyl, sealed tiles and varnished wood.

Porous applications use a low vacuum generator. Low vacuum units up to 21″Hg (71kPa) with flows up to 18.5 SCFM (524 SLPM) are typically used for porous materials such as corrugate, wood, fabrics, cinder block, etc… The relatively lower level vacuum for porous materials prevents warping, marring, dimpling or disfiguring of the surface due to excessive vacuum. This style generates more vacuum flow to overcome porosity and leakage while maintaining control over the object being handled.

Referencing the previously mentioned refuse container application, I performed the weight and movement analysis and determined that four of our model 900754 vacuum cups and two of our model 810006M Non-porous E-vacs would have been more than adequate to unload and lift my 95 gallon refuse container lids from the injection molding machine and move them to the hot stamp center. I recall the vacuum cup system we had in place back then, would frequently drop out and lose control over the product. This was not only a real process headache, but also made for a legitimate safety issue as well.

EXAIR E-vacs actually have other interesting uses. They have been used in applications for bag and package opening, label placement, vacuum forming, leak testing and many other applications.

EXAIR also has accessories to round out vacuum cup systems including vacuum cups themselves, mufflers, check valves, vacuum tubing and fittings. We would have interest to discuss your application. If you have questions regarding which E-vac style and size is proper for your project please contact any of our Application Engineers to help you with selection and design of your system.

Eric Kuhnash
Application Engineer
E-mail: EricKuhnash@exair.com
Twitter: Twitter: @EXAIR_EK

The Blog of all Blogs: A Quick Resource of Blogs that we Blogged

Published on by bdwagesLeave a comment

EXAIR started writing Blogs in 2008. Since then, we have written well over 2000 Blogs. There is a ton of information in our Blog section on the website. There is most likely a Blog or 10 written about nearly each one of our products. These are primarily written by application engineers that know a thing or two about our products. There are also many application Blogs, that may be very relatable to what you are doing. When you journey to our Blog page (or simply click Blog form EXAIR.com), simply type in a key word or two in our search bar. This search bar is located just below the first row of published Blogs on the right hand of the screen, here is a screenshot of that section (right). You can also choose to follow our blog here as well.

As application engineers, we get asked questions every day. Many of these questions are best answered in one (or more) of these 2000+ Blogs. Many times a picture or video can answer your questions much more precisely than a quick conversation or an email. Many times we will send you a blog link to help. Drawing from my own experience, and asking the other Application Engineers for their lists, I wanted to put our most referenced blogs in one helpful location. I’ve categorized these the best that I can, and hopefully this will be a useful resource for you today, and in the future.

OPTIMIZING YOUR COMPRESSED AIR SYSTEM

Six Steps to Optimizing Your Compressed Air System

This is one of the key sections to our blogs. One of our main goals is to help you optimize your system. Here are 6 blogs that go into detail on each of these key points:

  1. Six Steps to Optimization: Step 1 – Measure the Air Consumption
  2. Six Steps to Compressed Air Optimization: Step 2 – Find and Fix Leaks.
  3. Six Steps to Compressed Air Optimization: Step 3 – Use Efficient and Quiet Engineered Products
  4. Six Steps to Optimizing Compressed Air: Step 4, Turn it Off When Not in Use
  5. Installing Secondary Receiver Tanks: Step 5 in Optimizing Your Compressed Air System
  6. Six Steps to Optimization: Step 6 – Control the Air Pressure at the Point of Use to Minimize Air Consumption

INDUSTRIAL HOUSEKEEPING

This is a product line that has a lot of maintenance questions, probably because these products are used to clean up dirt, and where there is dirt, there can be problems, clogs and leaks:

One of the most common questions we have concerns the Reversible Drum Vacuum (RDV) refurbishment Blog. The RDV is used on the Reversible Drum Vac, and the Chip Trapper products. We offer a refurb service for a fee, but most of the time you can do this on your own by watching and following this blog: Cleaning the Reversible Drum Vac

The Chip Trapper has two very popular blogs as well: Finding and Fixing Chip Trapper Vacuum Leaks as well as Cleaning the Chip Trapper’s Directional Valve

CABINET COOLERS

  1. Calculating Heat loads for Cabinet Coolers
  2. Finding the correct internal temperature of your Electrical Cabinet – don’t use a temp gun
  3. Thermostat & Solenoid Valve
  4. How To Install An EXAIR NEMA 4 or 4X Cabinet Cooler® System
  5. EXAIR Side Mount Kits for NEMA Type 4-4X Cabinet Cooler® Systems
  6. Cold Air Distribution Kit Installation
  7. Installing A Dual Cabinet Cooler Hardware Kit
  8. How to identify your Cabinet Cooler

VORTEX TUBES

  1. Vortex Tubes for Dummies
  2. Adjusting the Vortex Tube
  3. Vortex Tube Cold Fraction – effects on flow and temperature
  4. Application: Creating Freeze Seals for water lines

SUPER AIR KNIVES

  1. Application: Bottle Drying with Super Air Knife (instead of blower)
  2. Application: Super Air Knives drying automotive parts
  3. How to position and mount your Air Knife
  4. Which Air Knife should you choose?
  5. Super Air Knife Plumbing Kits
  6. Maximizing Super Air Knives with Shims

LINE VACS / CONVEYOR SYSTEMS

  1. Why Line Vacs need ambient air
  2. How to drill out Line Vac Generator Holes for increased performance
  3. Application: Conveying Coffee Beans

AIR AMPLIFIERS

  1. Super Air Amplifier Ratios explained
  2. Air Amplifier vs Fan – for cooling
  3. Application: Super Air Amplifier evacuating smoke or fumes

AIR ATOMIZING SPRAY NOZZLES

  1. Choosing the right Atomizing nozzle
  2. No-Drip Nozzle repair video
  3. Atomizing Nozzle identification
  4. Application: Atomizing Spray nozzles and Gummy Bears

SAFETY AIR GUNS

  1. Putting the Safe in Safety Air Guns
  2. Safety Air Gun Accessories, Extensions, Chip Shields and more
  3. Chip Shield sizes and selections

GEN 4 STATIC ELIMINATORS

  1. Changing the Gen 4 Power Supply Fuse
  2. Replacing the rocker switch on a Gen 4 Power Supply
  3. Changing the high power cord on the Gen 4 Ion Air Cannon
  4. Application: Solving Static and Print quality in food packaging

E-VAC VACUUM GENERATORS

  1. How to build a custom E-Vac System
  2. Choosing the right size Vacuum Cups

ACCESSORIES – FILTERS AND REGULATORS

  1. Filter Separator and Pressure Regulator with coupling kit installation 
  2. Rebuilding an Automatic Drain Filter Separator 
  3. Overview of EXAIR accessories

CALCULATIONS AND MORE

  1. Calculating SCFM at any pressure
  2. ROI Calculations with EXAIR products
  3. Do you need a receiver tank?
  4. EXAIR’s Calculator Library
  5. EXAIR’s OSHA compliance

OPTIMZATION – EFC, FLOWMETERS, AND ULTRASONIK LEAK DETECTORS

  1. EFC – Application: Candy Company saves big money with EFC
  2. Flowmeter – How to install a Hot Tap Flowmeter
  3. Flowmeter – Moving and or using Block-Off rings

There are many more blogs and videos at your disposal. This is just a recap of many of our most used, most viewed and most helpful for the day-to-day conversations that happen here at EXAIR. If you have ideas for new blogs – we would love to hear that as well. Please feel free to reach out at any time for more information on any of our intelligent compressed air products.

Thank you for stopping by,

Brian Wages

Application Engineer

EXAIR Corporation
Visit us on the Web
Follow me on Twitter

Cover photo by clker-free-vector-image licensed by Pixabay