Tag: vortex air cooler

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.

Coat_Conserve_Cool_Convey_Clean
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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Cool Job, Cool Products

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

I’ve got a pretty cool job. I’ve written about this before…in fact, as recently as last week, in a piece about workplace safety, and how EXAIR is all over it, all the way. Brian Farno also blogged the other day about how EXAIR recognizes, appreciates, and celebrates achievement. Like usual, actually.

So yeah; this is a pretty cool job. And, just to put that into perspective, my first “grown up” job set the bar pretty high: upon completion of Naval Nuclear Power School, I was assigned to the initial manning crew of a new construction Trident submarine. When I got there in the spring of 1987, “tha thirty-five boat,” as the future USS Pennsylvania (SSBN-735) was known, was ON the pier (not NEXT to it) and we boarded through hull cuts in Engine Room Lower Level & the Torpedo Room. For two years, we worked with shipyard personnel to install, test, & certify all ship’s systems, and then took her out in the summer of 1989 for a rigorous series of sea trials. I wish there were words capable of conveying the extent of “job satisfaction” we felt when we submerged for the first time, and the whole ocean stayed outside the boat.

I was reminded of this the other day when I saw a news account of the bow section of a submarine being transported via barge from the shipyard that fabricated this section, to the shipyard that’s assembling the boat. Here’s a video clip of one such transit, from about a year ago:

I’ve written before about how compressed air is (and isn’t) used on board a submarine at sea. Compressed air is also used, for some pretty neat stuff, in their construction & service. And EXAIR Compressed Air Products are in the mix:

*Sometimes during work on a piping system, it’s not possible to isolate a particular section with valves, so a freeze seal is applied: a collar fits around the outside of the pipe, and very cold fluid is circulated through the collar. This freezes the liquid inside the pipe, forming a “plug,” which allows you to work on the piping downstream, just the same as if you had shut a valve there. One method of doing this is with liquid nitrogen…you take a big tank of the stuff to your work site, implement all the safety precautions you need to handle pressurized liquid at -321°F (spoiler alert: it’s complicated,) make up your connections, hope they don’t leak, and activate the system. Depending on the length of the job and the size of the tank, you may need to change it out…which, again, is complicated.  And yes, I’ve done it.

It's a real shame to foul this view with a block & tackle to lower a pressurized nitrogen tank down.
It’s a real shame to foul this view with a block & tackle to lower a pressurized nitrogen tank down.

Or, like several shipyards are doing currently, you can install an EXAIR Maximum Cold Temperature Vortex Tube to the collar, run a compressed air line to it, and you can supply cold air as low as -40°F, which will freeze a plug in that pipe for as long as you keep your air compressor running.

Vortex Tube
EXAIR Vortex Tubes produce cold air, on demand, with no moving parts.

*Another application has to do not with the equipment, but the people working on it. Welding is a hot job – there’s really no way around it – and welding in tight spaces can present real issues for the folks involved. Fans and blowers can provide a good amount of ventilation, but they also take up some room, which there may not be any to spare.

Enter EXAIR Air Amplifiers – they’re compact, lightweight, and use a small amount of compressed air to blow a high flow of cooling air, right where it’s needed.

EXAIR Air Amplifiers use a small amount of compressed air to create a tremendous amount of air flow.
EXAIR Air Amplifiers use a small amount of compressed air to create a tremendous amount of air flow.

These are just a couple of examples of how a large industry – shipbuilding – is using EXAIR products to capitalize on efficiency in a challenging environment. Regardless of your situation, if you’d like to learn if EXAIR can help out, give us a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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Up Ladder courtesy of Russ Bowman  Creative Commons License

Adjustable Spot Cooler Cools Saw Blade

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

I was recently contacted by a customer looking for a way to cool their band saw blade in a wood cutting operation. They process several different types of wood and when dealing with the more dense products they are seeing the blades heat up, causing them to stop production, change out the blades and scrap the production piece and start the process over. They cannot use a liquid type misting systems as this would contaminate the wood, resulting in more rejects, so they called EXAIR looking for assistance.

I recommended the customer use our Model # 3925 Adjustable Spot Cooler System with Dual Point Hose Kit in the application. The Adjustable Spot Cooler incorporates a Vortex Tube to provide a temperature drop from your supply temperature. By turning the knob on the unit, the temperature control valve allows the user to adjust the temperature range between -30°F up to +70°F, to fit the demand of the application. The flexible tubing is able to hold it’s position, ensuring that the cold airstream is directed towards the critical area(s). The system also features a magnetic base that allows for easy mounting.

3925
Model # 3925 Adjustable Spot Cooler System with Dual Point Hose Kit, providing up to 2,000 Btu/hr. of cooling capacity

With this particular customer, the inherent flexibility of an Adjustable Spot Cooler is a benefit to provide different cooling values depending on the type of wood they are cutting. Using the dual point hose kit they would be able to direct the cold air on each side of the blade to extend the blade’s longevity while decreasing the amount of rejects. Using the filter separator (included with the system), would relieve any concern of fluid contamination by removing any water condensate or particulate in the compressed air supply.

If you are looking to extend the tool life in your operation, give us a call.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

 

Vortex Tube Cools Molded Product to Prevent Defects

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

A manufacturer of synthetic roof shakes contacted me about a cooling application.  Their style of roof shake is made of a synthetic compound that is molded to look like cedar or stone in a variety of different colors.  They contacted EXAIR because they were getting a “bump” on the face of the roof shake.  It was determined that the vacuum cups used to move them were causing the defect.  The molded product did not have enough time to cool before the 2” (51mm) vacuum cups created an impression on the face.  In order to keep the quality department from rejecting the parts, they would have to wait for them to cool sufficiently before they could move them, costing them money.

Cooling with the Vortex Tube
Cooling with the Vortex Tube

 

The part was coming out of the machine at 300 deg. F (149 deg. C).  With the cycle time of the operation, they needed to try and cool the part just enough to harden the material before the vacuum was applied.  This would insure that the synthetic material would not deform.  The molding process created two shakes at a time.  A robot arm with the vacuum system would grab each shake using two suction cups.

Converting the size of the area to cool, I was able to calculate the estimated time to reduce the temperature to 200 deg. F (93 deg. C).  (This was from a previous blog, “Let’s Cool Things Down with Heat Transfer Equations”).  I recommended the 3225 Vortex Tubes.  It would only take 1 second to cool to the desired temperature.  And that was plenty enough time for this operation to resist the vacuum pressure.   I also recommended the model 3902 generator kit.  It would give the customer the ability to change the cooling capacity from 650 to 2,800 BTU/hr (164 to 706 Kcal/hr) for different weights and styles of roof shakes.  The Vortex Tube generators are easy to change for quick changes in cooling capacity.  I also suggested the 5901 single point hose kit to aim the cool air to the exact location.

EXAIR stocks our catalog products; so, the customer was able to be in full production status without defects within 24 hours of talking to an Application Engineer.

Vortex Kit
Vortex Tube Cooling Kit

 

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