• Hot and dirty processes can be a major issue for manufacturing companies
• The costs associated with down time and slower cycle times are an unnecessary burden
• Here are eight methods to speed up the cooling and cleaning of parts while in process
Method 1: Vortex Tubes
Vortex Tubes use an ordinary supply of compressed air as a power source, creating two streams of air, one hot and one cold – resulting in a low cost, reliable, maintenance free source of cold air for spot cooling solutions. The adjustable temperature airflow is great for cooling machining operations, setting hot melts, cooling soldered parts, cooling gas samples and much more.
Method 2: Cold Gun
The cold airflow from the outlet of the Cold Gun keeps parts cool, clean, and dry, an invaluable tool for machining a wide range of plastics, hard metals and other materials that may become contaminated when using traditional coolants or oils. Preset to provide optimal cooling, Cold Guns have a quick mount magnetic base and flexible cold air outlet.
Method 3: Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles
Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles have many uses — from spraying paint to creating a fog to keeping a room at a set humidity. A common use is to spray release agents. They can be expensive, yet if they aren't applied, parts will not come out of the mold, slowing production and raising scrap rates. Atomizing Nozzles use compressed air to help "shear" the liquid into a fine mist that can cool a larger surface area.
Method 4: Cabinet Coolers
The costs associated with down time and repairs on sensitive electronics that fail due to heat or environmental contaminants is an unnecessary burden. Vortex tube powered Cabinet Coolers are simple, but effective, and can be used in the toughest environments. Installed through a standard electrical knockout, they maintain NEMA 4, 4X and 12 integrity. There are no moving parts, no freon to leak, and no refrigerant compressors to fail.
Method 5: Super Air Knife
The Super Air Knife, perfect for wide area blowoff, has a 40:1 amplification ratio, which means that there are 40 parts of ambient air for every 1 part of compressed air. This ratio creates the most efficient air knife available in the market. The higher the amplification ratio, the more volume of cooling air removes heat from hot parts or processes.
Method 6: Engineered Nozzles
Recently, two open pipes that were cooling the bottom of a molded part were replaced with two Super Air Nozzles. The open pipes were giving inconsistent results when cooling flash on the bottom of parts, causing jams on their trimming machine when the parts remained too warm. The Super Air Nozzles provided consistent cooling which eliminated down time! They can also prevent costly OSHA fines for noise levels and dead-end pressure (OSHA Standards 29 CFR 1910.242(b) and 29 CFR 1910.95(a)).
Method 7: Super Air Wipes
Super Air Wipes are used to blow-off, cool, clean, and dry products. Air is blown in a conical 360° pattern completely around the outside of parts. For example, the Coanda profile is set at a 30° angle to increase the contact area with a just sheathed wire. For this example, the Air Wipe cleaned water off the wire after a water bath and it also added additional cooling before the wire was wrapped on a reel. This allowed production to be sped up.
Method 8: Super Air Amplifiers
Super Air Amplifiers produce high volume, high velocity outlet flows, up to 25 times their consumption rate. For example, a customer used a Super Air Amplifier (rather than a fan) to cool a cast part. They were able to hit the part with over 800 SCFM of air, pulling heat away from their part, which allowed them to run faster and decreased their cycle time by nearly 30%.