Tag: vacuum generator

E-Vac And Air Amplifier Lift Pieces Of Insulation

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

We were recently contacted by a manufacturer of high temperature insulation who was looking for a way to pickup 12″ squares and small strips of porous material. Their proposed system was to have the parts traveling on a conveyor where a frame would come down lift the parts approximately 12″ vertical, rotate them 90° and then lower to drop them onto the exit conveyor. They were interested in using our E-Vac Vacuum Generator but were unsure which model might work best. I recommended they order a unit to test under our Unconditional 30 Day Guarantee but since this was a new process, they weren’t set up to run any testing. I then offered to perform the test here at EXAIR and the customer agreed and was able to send some samples pieces for testing.

In our first test with the larger 12″ squares, we tested our Model # 800003 Porous E-Vac with a bellows cup attached. The E-Vac Vacuum Generator is a fast responding, highly efficient, compressed air vacuum pump. Using the E-Vac we were able to lift the parts off of the table but when we went to rotate the pieces, the vacuum cup would lose suction and the part would drop. Even though this is a light part, there was not enough vacuum flow to overcome the rotating movement and the part fell off. In short, the E-Vac wasn’t able to pull enough free air (vacuum flow) through the piece to maintain the vacuum when trying to rotate 90°. This told me we needed to increase the amount of SCFM pulling through the sample so we looked at our Model # 120022 2″ Super Air Amplifier. The 2″ Super Air Amplifier provides a great deal of vacuum flow, at low vacuum levels and is well suited for very porous, light materials. With this additional vacuum airflow, we were able to pick up the 12″ squares, rotate them 90°, lower and turn off the compressed air supply to release them.

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Model # 120022 2″ Super Air Amplifier

With the smaller pieces, due to their physical size and lighter weight, we went back to testing the Model # 800003 E-Vac and the results were much more favorable. In this case, the E-Vac did create enough vacuum flow that we were able to quickly pick up the part, rotate the desired 90° and release the part.

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Model # 800003 Porous E-Vac with Model # 900771 Bellow Vacuum Cup

As you can see, sometimes what seems like the perfect solution for the application turns out to be a totally different product altogether. Luckily, EXAIR has you covered with our extensive offering of compressed air products to fit a wide variety of industrial applications. To see how we can help you with your specific need, give us a call.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

Expert Assistance Results in the Best Product for the Job

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

I’ve written before on the Principles of Operation of EXAIR products, and about how there may be more than one option to consider when choosing an engineered Compressed Air Product…here, here, and here.  This may, in fact, be the most valuable service that an Application Engineer can offer a caller: providing the BEST solution, regardless of what the initial idea was. Case in point:

A caller who was familiar with our Reversible Drum Vacs’ (RDV) two-way pumping action wanted to see if he could use one for a similar purpose: they were putting a thin plastic bag liner in an open top drum, and used an electric shop vacuum to suck the air out from between the drum and liner, essentially “form fitting” the liner to the drum. Then, when they fill that liner with their product, they reverse the shop vacuum, blowing air INTO the space between the drum & liner, to assist in removing the bag. This works, but the electric vacuum is loud, and they have to move the hose from one connection to the other every time they want to put a bag in or take it out of the drum.

Like I said, the caller was familiar with our Reversible Drum Vac, so he was picturing it pulling a vacuum on the drum to pull the bag in place (when the RDV is in the “fill” position) and porting air into the drum to expel the bag (when it’s in the “empty” position.)

With a simple turn of the knob, the Reversible Drum Vac can fill or empty a 55 gallon drum in 90 seconds!
With a simple turn of the knob, the Reversible Drum Vac can fill or empty a 55 gallon drum in 90 seconds!

Thing is, the RDV needs to be installed on a drum lid, and there wouldn’t be a very effective way to port it to the space between the drum & the bag. Here’s where our attention turned to another product: the E-Vac Vacuum Generator. Same principle of operation, but easily adaptable to their specific need, because it’s, quite simply, built for adaptability.

EXAIR E-Vacs provide instantaneous vacuum response, and are engineered for high efficiency to minimize air consumption.
EXAIR E-Vacs provide instantaneous vacuum response, and are engineered for high efficiency to minimize air consumption.

By plumbing the vacuum port (#4 above) to a tube inserted into the drum (same as their shop vac’s hose) they can quickly pull a vacuum, which pulls the bag into place. With a valve installed on the exhaust port (#5 above,) they can close the valve to port the compressed air supply back through the vacuum line, expelling the bag. No noisy electric motor, no constantly changing the hose, just a small (Model 800005M In-Line E-Vac Low Vacuum Generator w/Muffler, in this case) compressed air operated device, with no moving parts.

With (14) Models to choose from (seven sizes, all available in "High Vacuum" for non-porous products and "Low Vacuum" for lifting objects with a porous surface,) we've got the solution to your pick-and-place application.
With (14) Models to choose from (seven sizes, all available in “High Vacuum” for non-porous products and “Low Vacuum” for lifting objects with a porous surface,) we’ve got the solution to your pick-and-place application.

If you have a need for air flow, vacuum generation, cooling, static elimination, industrial housekeeping, atomized fluid spraying, bulk material conveyance, or just questions about improving your use of your compressed air, give us a call. We’re eager to help.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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Can an Air Amplifier Be Used As A Vacuum Generator for a Vacuum Chuck?

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment
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Adjustable Air Amplifier

I had a recent discussion with one of our overseas distributors whose customer buys a lot of the Air Amplifier model 6040 for another application and wanted to know if they could adapt it to a new application as a vacuum generator.

The customer’s need was to produce a vacuum of -400 mbar (-11.81” Hg) for the application. The input pressure at which they needed to produce this vacuum level was 6 BARG. The customer needed a vacuum flow of about 57 liters per minute which is not too high for us to consider.

My colleague at our distributor asked me if I could run a test to see if the model 6040 (3/4” Aluminum Adjustable Air Amplifier) could produce the needed vacuum level with 6 BARG input pressure. This is something I could do rather easily with some fixtures we already had made up in our lab. So, I set up the test and ran the Air Amplifier at 6 BARG input pressure. The unit, at its stock air gap setting was able to produce about -131 mbar(-3.87” Hg) of vacuum. I tried adjusting the input pressure and the air gap setting on the Air Amplifier. The lowest vacuum I was able to achieve was in the range of about -178 mbar (-5.26” Hg). Since this vacuum level was not close to the prescribed need, I advised my colleague of the values and told him that model 6040 would not work for this case.

And so, in the spirit of one of my favorite TV shows, Mythbusters, I then asked the question, “What would it take to produce a vacuum level of at least 400 mbar and 57 liters of vacuum flow?”. After consulting my handy dandy, new EXAIR Catalog 28 I was able to find the data I needed to resolve to a model number recommendation. My search using the data above led me to the Adjustable E-vac model 840015M which is our second smallest out of four possible models available. The designation of the “M” at the end of the model means the unit is included with a straight through muffler for sound attenuation, an all important feature for vacuum generators.

Model 840015M specifications indicate it has ability to produce vacuum flow of 114.7 liters per minute when powered at 5.5 BARG while producing a vacuum of -406 mbar (-12” Hg). This model has capacity to produce vacuum levels all the way to -847 mbar (-25” Hg) if necessary, so having plenty of head room for this recommendation to go higher will be no problem at all.

The morals of the story are: If you think you might have a crazy idea, it probably isn’t so crazy after all. If you have a scenario that you think we might be able to test with our equipment, we’ll sure give it a try if we can. Finally, new Catalog 28 is packed full of good information to help make determinations based on performance characteristics much easier so that we can make what we feel is a firm recommendation. And if we don’t think something is a viable idea or can’t be done, we will be sure to let you know that too.

Neal Raker, International Sales Manager
nealraker@exair.com

@EXAIR_NR

When The Obvious Answer, Isn’t

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Certain EXAIR products are designed for specific applications. We’ll still get calls from folks who want to use them in situations different than what they’re intended. For instance:

*Reversible Drum Vacs for use with volatile liquids. Due to the very real risk of ignition, we do not specify our Industrial Vacuums for use with flammables. This is a case where we can’t help, but we do know some suppliers of suitable equipment for these situations.

*Cabinet Cooler Systems for anything but a totally enclosed electrical cabinet. Oftentimes, these alternate applications are really just in need of a reliable, consistent source of cold air, which can be more properly addressed with a Cold Gun, Adjustable Spot Cooler or Mini Cooler.

*Speaking of those particular Spot Cooling Products, we’re able to help many callers who inquire about these by simply pointing them in the direction of a Vortex Tube: they’re lightweight, compact, and with standard NPT connections for compressed air supply, cold flow, and hot exhaust, you can hook them up to darn near anything you want.

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A broad range of products, each with a broad range of applications!

Like the Vortex Tubes, a good many of our products’ designs afford adaptability to a wide range of uses. I submit, for your reading pleasure, these two wildly different Line Vac applications:

*A manufacturer of electrical connector devices needed to move small parts from a mass production line to their assembly area. A Model 6084 2” Aluminum Line Vac and our 6934-20 2” Clear Reinforced PVC Conveyance Hose (20ft Length) was purchased and installed. They operate it as needed to empty the production bin and fill the assembly bin; simple as that. This is a “textbook” job for a Line Vac.

*A service company that specializes in large compressors & engines was looking for a compact & mobile device to evacuate exhaust gases. This is normally where we start talking about Air Amplifiers (and we did) but their calculations called for more suction head than the Air Amplifiers will generate. Their calculations were right, and they’re putting Model 6060 ¾” Stainless Steel Line Vacs on all their service trucks. So, a “textbook” job for an Air Amplifier was actually a better fit for the Line Vac.

And speaking of “textbook” applications that take unexpected turns, another caller needed help with a “pick and place” operation that he’d purchased a small E-Vac Vacuum Generator and Vacuum Cup for. He needed to move these small media filters, one at a time, from a stack, into their product. Try as they might, they could NOT pick up just one of these pieces from the stack, which was about 3” in diameter, and about the consistency of a coffee filter….which was exactly what I used to replicate the application in the Efficiency Lab. I couldn’t just pick one up with the E-Vac either, so I tried to just use the open suction end of a Line Vac – even with the compressed air supply valve cracked open as low as I could manage, it still wanted to pick up 2 or 3 at a time. We’ve got one other product that generates a vacuum, and, crazy as it sounds, I attempted to apply our Air Amplifier in a pick-and-place situation. And it worked: with the supply valve cracked open (it wasn’t even registering flow to the smallest division on our rotameter flow meter,) the Model 120020 ¾” Super Air Amplifier was able to consistently pick up one (and only one) coffee filter at a time. So our “textbook” job for an E-Vac was solved by an Air Amplifier.

Sometimes, what seems to be the obvious solution, isn’t. With a little discussion, and possibly experimentation, though, the right answer will generally reveal itself. If you think this might be where you’re at with your application, give us a call. I can’t wait to see what happens!

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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