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 […]
Piab introduces piSoftgrip 50-2
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 […]
Keep an eye on blowing costs
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 […]
Compressed air fail: Blowoff
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 […]
Are you still cleaning with compressed air?
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 […]
Compressed air fair: Blowing control
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, […]
Piab introduces piSoftgrip 50-2
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 […]
Compressed air fail: Wet air
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 […]
VMAC sponsors LEGO robotics program
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 […]
Compressed air fail: Modulation lesson
A wood products manufacturer had a problem — it was running out of compressed air capacity. Many times a day, the plant pressure would drop and the workers would lose their most critical production line. Faced with this problem, the Maintenance Manager did a search of the company inventory and found a spare 200-hp compressor. […]
