Reduce Costs and Increase Efficiency with Sonic Air Knife for Machining Center

Overview

Clopay, the largest manufacturer of residential garage doors in North America, needs metal chip removal systems to eliminate machined chips from the top of 30” W (762 mm) garage door panels after exiting the “window routing” process. The panels are traveling single file at a production rate of 30 FPM (9 MPM). During this routing station process, chips and debris need to be removed prior to the next installation process. Clopay had been utilizing a machining table blow-off with a compressed air knife angled across the length of the garage door panel to remove excess debris. However, the compressed air did not provide effective metal and plastic dust blow-off and required 23.2 HP (17.3 kW) for  each routing station.

Solution

Sonic supplied its 5HP (3.7 kW) Blower Air Knife System for each machining routing station that produces 32,000 FPM (9,753 MPM) exit velocities to provide an observable impact to remove the excess machining chips to one side and allow for easy collection and disposal. Sonic's system resulted in an 18HP (13 kW) reduction per router compared to Clopay's compressed air system.

Result

Once Clopay installed the Sonic Air Knife System, they saw dramatic results in debris blow-off and capture using their existing central dust collector to create a true “push pull air wash” effect. The exit air was more effective at a greater distance and easily pushed the remaining debris across the 30” W (762 mm) panel for collection. Operating costs were reduced by 78.4%. As a result, Clopay was able to avoid purchasing additional air compressors and reduce the overall load of their current compressed air system.