Today the main focus in manufacturer’s minds is energy saving and an important focus it should
be. While it is reasonable and ambitious to move to lower energy cost equipment, maintenance
costs should also be considered. There are costs to maintenance that are sometimes
overlooked or that are not always so obvious.

With the ever increasing trend of requiring outside service personnel to come to the
manufacturing facility, the cost of maintenance has other implications. This trend is as much a
part of technological development as is the difficulty of finding qualified personnel for some jobs.
The cost of an outside contractor’s time not only includes the contractor. There is the cost of
the “time” taken by an employee to bring in and often accompany or supervise (or at least be
responsible for) the contractor. Then there is the cost of safety training and the time to obtain
approval to go into the factory site.

Downtime costs whether proactive, predictive, breakdown or preventative are usually more
visible and should always be considered, when measured against energy costs.
Same with spare part costs.

Another cost not always considered is the opportunity cost that is lost when funds have to go
toward maintenance costs, money which can be spent elsewhere.
Energy costs can be easily calculated for various pieces of equipment. When considering
estimated maintenance costs, these “other” associated expenditures should also be taken into
account.

Nex Flow™ compressed air operated products for blow off and cooling are essentially
maintenance free which in effect “recovers” costs that would otherwise go toward maintenance,
spare parts and downtime.

Air amplification products used for blow-off, cooling and venting offer “both” energy saving and
essentially zero maintenance, with no moving parts. They come in the form of air nozzles, air
jets, air knives (linear versions), air wipes and as annular air amplifiers. They convert pressure
normally lost as pressure drop into flow – producing a high velocity air stream to clean, dry or
cool surfaces with low noise levels, at a safe pressure (under 30 psi). Annular versions can
vent as well as blow off or cool surfaces. There are no blower motors to rely on – no worry of
breakdown, no motors to maintain, no outside service personnel to have to worry about. All that
with no need for spare parts, and at a much lower capital cost as well.

In some applications the shear force from a blower will not be as high as from a compressed
air operated blow-off slowing or otherwise negatively effecting production. This cost can be
significant if not noticed.

Nex Flow™ also produces “Venture” vacuum generators utilizing a zero maintenance air flow
system to generate high vacuum for moving small material such as resin for hopper loading
in the plastic industry. Especially ideal for intermittent use applications, these devices are
compact, effective with no maintenance.

A similar idea is incorporated in their air operated drum pump which sues only compressed to
either pressurize or crate a vacuum in a sealed drum to fill or empty the drum of liquids. With no
motors to clean or repair the item again is maintenance free.

One popular product is their vortex tubes used to spot cooling and for enclosure cooling.
A vortex tube takes compressed air and literally divides it up into a hot and cold stream.
The unit has no moving parts. All types of applications exist for vortex tubes for spot cooling: cooling
machine tools in dry machining to increase production rates, setting hot melt adhesive, to cool
gas samples, to cool heat seals. Most often these units are sold in packaged form for easier
and fast installation such as the Tool Cooler and the Panel Cooler which also comes with UL
and ULC approvals.

Panel Coolers, despite their increased energy use are virtually maintenance free, extremely reliable, produce no condensate to remove, purge the electrical panels and keep out dirt and moisture. With virtually no maintenance these units are ideal in especially dirty and wet environments and hot and humid areas since there are no electrical motors to break downand filters to maintain, costly maintenance activities especially in harsh environments.
Any downtime to service air conditioning systems can significantly affect production output and add
to costs. Energy costs are very important but that must be compared to the costs of maintenance and production effects.

Les Rapchak
President
Nex Flow Air Products Corp.
www.nexflowair.com