Air knives give fans the cold shoulder
July 2007
Pneumatics & Hydraulics
A manufacture of automotive electronics had a problem cooling computers as they exited a wave soldering machine. In order to be handled and tested, the computers needed to be cooled to 27°C. Initially, the manufacturer tried banks of 152 mm diameter axial fans along the 2,5 m length of the cooling conveyor. The banks comprised 16 fans blowing down from the top and 16 fans blowing up from the bottom with the fans mounted 178 mm away from the surface. After travelling the full length of the conveyor (a five minute duration) with the fans running at full force the computers were still 42°C. Because of the delay in cooling, quality control personnel sat with an unacceptable backlog of computers waiting to be tested.
The company removed the top and the bottom fan banks and replaced them with three model 110012 305 mm Super Air Knives that were evenly spaced across the cooling section. Each air knife was angled so the computer and heatsink received a constant flow of air. With the conveyor running at the same speed and air supply to the air knives set at below 3 bar, the computers were cooled to
27°C in 90 seconds.
The laminar airflow of the super air knives was the key to success in this application. Fan cooling could only provide random spikes of air at moderate velocities. The uniform sheet of air from the air knives quietly dissipated the heat for the first 610 mm above the conveyor. Low air consumption and the compact size of the air knife was an added bonus.
For more information contact Rodney Bradley, ETEST, +27 (0)31 702 8302, [email protected], www.etest.co.za
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