• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Pneumatic Tips

Tips, Trends, Resources, News and Information

  • Pneumatics Blog
  • Industry News
  • Air Preparation
  • Engineering Basics
  • Equipment
    • Actuators
    • Cylinders
    • Fittings
    • Gears
    • Grippers
    • Pumps
    • Air Compressors
    • Tubing
    • Vacuums
    • Valves
  • Pressure Sensing
  • Suppliers
  • Videos

Paul Heney

Compressed air fail: Why dry to -40°?

January 22, 2021 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

A manufacturer of industrial coatings used a heatless desiccant air dryer to process and condition the compressed air for their complete production process.  This 1,500 cfm dryer consumed about 225 cfm of compressed air for its purge flow, which costs about $40,000 per year in equivalent electrical costs, and further had a 10 psi pressure […]

Filed Under: Air Preparation

How can you achieve cylinder flow reduction?

January 8, 2021 By Paul Heney 2 Comments

Looking for ways to further reduce your compressed air demand?  Consider investigating air cylinder actuation. Often times, air cylinders in production machinery only require significant force during a single power stroke, but still use full line pressure to return the cylinder to resting position.  Let’s compare the air consumption for double acting versus a spring […]

Filed Under: Actuators, Air Preparation, Cylinders

Piab introduces piSoftgrip 50-2

January 8, 2021 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

Piab has once again extended its pi-Softgrip family with a new pinch gripper developed for the automation of the food/chocolate industry. The vacuum-based soft gripper can grip sensitive and lightweight oblong objects with odd geometries and/or objects with an unusual surface. piSoftgrip has two gripping fingers and a sealed vacuum cavity, all made in one […]

Filed Under: Grippers, Vacuums

Keep an eye on blowing costs

December 30, 2020 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

Blowing with compressed air is costly, due to the poor conversion efficiency between electrical energy and compressed air power.  Typically for any mechanical operation, it costs about 10 times more to use compressed air to move something — even more if that something is only minute particle, such as dust and wood chips. It is […]

Filed Under: Air Preparation

Compressed air fail: Blowoff

December 22, 2020 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

A mine had a large 10,000-cfm air compressor installed to feed underground operations. Busy in its heyday, the mine operations had been reduced substantially, and the compressed air demand was on average 3,300 cfm.  Unfortunately, even with the reduction in flow over the years, the electrical demand of the air compressor did not drop off […]

Filed Under: Air Preparation

Are you still cleaning with compressed air?

December 15, 2020 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

Too often during compressed air leak audits, high pressure compressed air personnel cleaning stations are  discovered. Use of high pressure compressed air blowing (above 30 psi) is common in plants with dusty environments where workers’ clothing may become soiled. Blow nozzles with safety tips — and pressure regulators used to reduce pressure — are very […]

Filed Under: Air Preparation

Compressed air fair: Blowing control

December 11, 2020 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

A board plant production line had a quality problem.  When the sheets exited the saw that cut the product into standard dimensions, some sawdust and chips stuck to the surface.  When the sheets were stacked, this debris would bind itself to the product and be hard to remove, causing quality problems. Faced with this problem, […]

Filed Under: Air Preparation

Piab introduces piSoftgrip 50-2

December 3, 2020 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

Piab has extended the piSoftgrip family with a new pinch gripper developed for the automation of the food/chocolate industry. The vacuum-based soft gripper can grip sensitive and lightweight oblong objects with odd geometries and/or objects with an unusual surface. piSoftgrip has two gripping fingers and a sealed vacuum cavity, all made in one piece, resulting […]

Filed Under: Grippers Tagged With: piab

Compressed air fail: Wet air

November 25, 2020 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

Air quality is important to a compressed air consumer — having a cool, clean and dry source of compressed air is essential, especially when food products are coming in contact with the compressed air system output. A food products processor had purchased a very efficient cycling refrigerated air dryer a few years ago to condition […]

Filed Under: Air Preparation

VMAC sponsors LEGO robotics program

November 25, 2020 By Paul Heney Leave a Comment

VMAC is sponsoring Nanaimo Science’s Saturday Morning Science program. The sponsorship provides subsidy support for 10 children, ages 6 to 12, to take part in 12 weeks of Saturday Morning Science programming, the first four of which will be LEGO themed. In the Nanaimo Science LEGO robotics program, children work with complex LEGO kits and […]

Filed Under: Industry News

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 77
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Fluid Power World Digital Edition

Fluid Power World Digital EditionBrowse the most current issue of Fluid Power World and back issues in an easy to use high quality format. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading design engineering magazine today.

Design Guides

Pneumatic Actuators Design Guide

Hydraulic Cylinders Design Guide

RSS Featured White Papers

  • eBook: Practical Guide to Pneumatics
  • Saving energy and service cost with electric linear systems
  • White Paper-How to Design Efficient Pneumatic Systems!
Subscribe Today
Hose Assembly Tips

Follow Paul on Twitter

Tweets by @DW_Editor

Follow Mary on Twitter

Tweets by @DW_MaryGannon

Footer

Pneumatic Tips

Fluid Power World Network

  • Fluid Power World
  • Hose Assembly Tips
  • Mobile Hydraulic Tips
  • Sealing and Contamination Tips
  • Fluid Power Distributor Lookup

PNEUMATIC TIPS

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Advertise with us
  • Contact us
  • About us
Follow us on Twitter  Add us on Facebook  Follow us on LinkedIn  Follow us on YouTube  Follow us on Instagram

Copyright © 2021 · WTWH Media LLC and its licensors. All rights reserved.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media.

Privacy Policy