Tag: vortex air cooler

Versatile, Efficient And Quiet: The EXAIR Super Air Knife

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

It would be a memorable day in Application Engineering if one of us didn’t handle at least one call regarding a Super Air Knife. They’re just used for so many different purposes: from debris blow off, to drying, to cooling – in fact, a good number of “Super Air Knife calls” start as “Vortex Tube calls,” because both have their place, depending on factors such as how hot the part to be cooled is, what temperature you want to get it to, how fast does it need cooled, etc. More on that here, and here…today, I’m going to write about environmental containment and separation.

In a nutshell, that means keeping smoke, fumes, powder, etc., inside an area, or at the very least, away from another area. A couple of examples of this are documented in the Super Air Knives section of our latest catalog. If you don’t have one, click here.

The first features:

lens clearing
(2) Model 110024 24″ Aluminum Super Air Knives, which keep the smoke from machining oil that burns off during an engine test directed into the vent hood.

The second utilizes:

A Model 110006 6" Aluminum Super Air Knife to keep the slag, spatter, and smoke from a laser cutter away from the lens of the machine's visual inspection system.
A Model 110006 6″ Aluminum Super Air Knife to keep the slag, spatter, and smoke from a laser cutter away from the lens of the machine’s visual inspection system.

A third, which I don’t have pictures of yet because it’s brand-new, is a little larger scale: a recent caller was looking for a way to keep ALL the powder inside his powder coating spray booth. There’s an open vent with runs all the way across the top, and, when the booth is in operation, a very small plume exits along its 90″ width. They purchased a Model 110296 96″ Aluminum Super Air Knife Kit to blow a continuous curtain of air across this 4″ wide gap, angled down slightly into the booth. The Kit’s Pressure Regulator allows them to “dial down” the air flow to a level just high enough to keep the powder from exiting the gap, but also low enough to not disturb the powder coating process inside the booth.

A self contained blower unit was actually their first idea…these are very popular for large doorways…you’ve probably even seen them on large doors on shipping docks, or forklift paths inside plants where it’s necessary to keep pollutants from one room from entering another. For this situation, though, the compact size, low sound level, and precise adjustability of the Super Air Knife’s air flow made it the logical choice.

If you’d like to know more about EXAIR Super Air Knives, or any of our Intelligent Compressed Air Products, give me a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
Find us on the Web
Follow me on Twitter
Like us on Facebook

Consider Longevity of Product Life When Making a Purchase

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

In some instances, we have customers that will call and tell us about their EXAIR products. They tell us about how well they work and how long they have been in service. As a manufacture, this is great to hear. In this instance, the customer had 14 EXAIR Vortex Tubes in his laser inspection system. He uses them to keep the lens cool during operation. He was extremely happy with the longevity designed into the EXAIR product, and he wanted to contact us to let us know.

He stated that the Vortex Tubes have been in service for over 10 years without any problems, and they still are going strong.  EXAIR manufactures their Vortex Tubes out of stainless steel.  They can have a cooling capacity that ranges from 135 BTU/hr to 10,200 BTU/hr.  We also can produce a high temperature (HT) version for applications within elevated ambient temperatures.    What is unique with this product is that there is no moving parts – there are no bearings or slides to wear out, no coolant to refill or no compressor to fail.  We incorporate this same principle with our Cabinet Coolers, Air Amplifiers, Industrial Housekeeping Products, Air Nozzles and Air Knives.  With the quality engineering and design of our products, longevity is a norm, not an exception.

Vortex Tube
Vortex Tube

The reason for this blog is to explain longevity, and longevity can be a factor in ownership. When you look at items like refrigeration systems, the compressor will wear out, the system can leak Freon, the continuous PM to keep the condenser clean and filters changed requires close attention. When replacing or fixing the product regularly, you can see how this will add up in costs for repairs and costs due to downtime. Finding a solution for your production or application problem is easy with EXAIR’s huge variety of products, sizes and materials. With the exceptional design and engineering behind EXAIR products, you can rely on the product for years to come, with little to no maintenance. That is the longevity EXAIR products possess, with longevity comes dollar and air savings, and best of all it comes with peace of mind.

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

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

I’m old enough to remember doing business before we had the internet, but I swear I don’t remember how I (or anyone else) ever got anything done. The ability to share details and information, in real time, is a hallmark of the way business is conducted in the 21st Century.

Now, to be fair, we’ve been able to immediately send written data (spec sheets, operation instructions, etc.) for a long time, via fax machines. Curiously, this technology predates the invention of the telephone, believe it or not. It just didn’t work well at all with photographs, though…I recall trying it several times, and actually having it work once: someone put a small part directly on the glass of the copier (much to the chagrin of the office manager) and faxed the resultant image to me.

Nowadays, we just snap a picture with a smart phone camera and email it. In fact, EXAIR Application Engineers do this at least a couple of times a day. In fact, just this morning, I had the pleasure of helping a customer get a replacement muffler for one of our Vortex Tube Spot Cooling Products…one that they purchased about 25 years ago. I was a little curious to know, however, what condition of the rest of the device was in. The customer sent me an email with photos, which showed a 25 year old EXAIR Component Cooler in REMARKABLE condition…except for the muffler, which was showing some corrosion due to recent operation with some moisture in the air supply (due to the undetected failure of an upstream dryer.) The nice thing about digital photos is, I could also tell that the o-ring used to install the muffler was also in need of replacement…something we’d have never been able to tell from a fax of an image, taken from a copier.

As you can see, the o-ring had seen better days too...back in the 1990's!
As you can see, the o-ring had seen better days too…back in the 1990’s!

Within about a half an hour, we were processing an order for a muffler and o-ring that they’ll have tomorrow, and their 25 year old Vortex Tube product will be running like new. Just like the ones shown near the end of this video (you will see that back in the day, we used two x’s in our name):

Every day, EXAIR Application Engineers prove that a picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words…and videos might just be worth a thousand pictures.  If you’d like help with a compressed air product application, or an existing compressed air product, let us know.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
Find us on the Web
Follow me on Twitter
Like us on Facebook

Adjustable Spot Cooler Increases Production Output in a Medical Application

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

I was recently contacted by a plastics manufacturer who specializes in producing precision medical components. In this particular application they were pushing an ETFE tube onto a heated, flared forming pin. Once the tube is set onto the pin, they placed the assembly into a shroud where they used their shop compressed air running through a manifold split into separate lines to cool the part. This process was working but it takes approximately 1 minute so they called EXAIR looking for a way to reduce their cooling cycle time and increase their daily production.

I recommend they use our Adjustable Spot Cooler and plumb the cold air exhaust to their existing manifold. The Adjustable Spot Cooler incorporates a Vortex Tube to provide a specific temperature drop from the compressed air supply temperature. The output temperature and cold airflow can be easily adjusted using the control valve on the unit. Ducting the output flow would allow the cold air to distribute evenly, not only reducing the cooling cycle but also providing more dimensional stability to the finished product.

Please note, that we do not always recommend running cold air through a manifold because many times these manifolds are metal and simply act as a heat sink, which removes the cold temperature from the air stream. In this case, however, the manifold was made of plastic and the air lines to the formed tube assembly were short. The plastic material insulated the cold air and the short air lines running to the tube assembly also decrease the time the cold air has to lose heat. Applications with typical metal manifolds and longer air distribution lines are best served by using the Adjustable Spot Cooler directly on to the application and eliminating the manifold.

Adjustable Spot Cooler
Maintenance free, spot cooling device providing up to 2,000 Btu/hr. of cooling capacity.

This is just one example of how incorporating a Spot Cooling device into an existing application provided a more favorable end result. Don’t hesitate to give us a call and see how we can help improve your process too.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN