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Air Knifes used for bottle drying?

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  • #16
    Those aforementioned air dryers "that look like electric razor guards" should work pretty well for that. We have them on our canning line. Anything over 40 psi air should blow the water from underneath the crown lip pretty well.

    Or you can do what I did...I put some bits of plastic under my track to make it bumpy, post rinse. It makes the bottle jump up and down a bit (took some tweaking to make it work without falling over) and shakes the excess water from underneath the crown.

    Bit of a rube goldberg solution, but it works!

    Nat

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    • #17
      I have looked into the air knife option and I like the idea of "BUMPING" along the conveyor.

      Does one knife generally do the trick or is it necessary for many drying stations with each station consisting of one knife?

      I have no probs buying a second compressor for this project, but I would think that my primary one presently wouldn't be able to keep up. It is 60 gallon tank with continuous duty motor at 135 psi it delivers 13.2 CFM. On a bottling day it rarely gets above 100PSI (operating KOSME label machine and 12/1 CIMEC filler), so I am thinking at 100 PSI it is above 11.2-12 CFM. I couldn't afford to steal much air from this, but could get a smaller compressor to just operate the labeler and air dryer system. Then when one of these two compressors goes, I would be interested in upgrading to 200 gallon tank twin screw compressor...just wanna burn my guy out right now--lasted me 8 years so far and change the oil every 6 months!

      DEREK

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      • #18
        I'd recommend 2 air knives, at 90* from each other.

        As for the bumping, the best way to do it that I found was a piece of UHMW poly under the belt, long ramp up, and three 1/8" steps down. No fally bottles!

        The air knives use about 40 psi, minimum, but very low volume. Mine go on with a prox sensor (an eye would work as well) and go on for a brief "pssshht" after a 25 millisecond delay to allow the can to get under the knife. Works a treat!

        because of the low volume, I betcha a silent airbrush compressor would make enough air...but I guess the best judge of that would be the air knife manufacturer.

        Good luck!

        Nat

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        • #19
          Awesoem info. How is the air allowed in? Some sort of very quick acting solenoid? For 40-60 BPM I would assume that the "guts" of that solenoid would wear quite quickly...but I like the idea to save air compressors to be on for long periods of time

          Cheers
          DEREK

          seems like exair is the major air knife supplier!

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