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5 Benefits of Using Paxton's PX-Series Centrifugal Blowers

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 18:49:00 GMT

Is your current blower system causing unnecessary downtime for your business? Are maintenance costs and blower repairs costing you too much money? Are you using or considering a direct drive blower? If so, Paxton's high efficiency PX-series centrifugal blower systems can help.

The biggest differentiator between Paxton's high efficiency PX-series centrifugal blowers and today's direct drive blowers is the motor speed. Paxton's ultra-efficient design utilizes a set of pulleys, all varying in size, to connect the blower head and the motor via a belt-driven system. This allows the motor to operate at lower speeds while simultaneously causing the blower head to spin 5-6 times faster. Direct drive blowers connect the blower head directly to a high-speed motor spinning at approximately 16,000 RPM. This high-speed motor ultimately creates unwanted heat that can result in premature motor bearing failures - costing your business time and money in the long run.

By design, Paxton's PX-series centrifugal blowers address the unwanted issues that can arise from using a direct drive blower while also, in many circumstances, producing superior flows and pressures. So, why choose a Paxton PX-series blower over today's direct drive option? We've put together a list of the top five reasons to go with Paxton's PX-series blowers:

Produces Less Heat - While direct drive blowers use a high-speed motor that spins at roughly 16,000 RPM, Paxton's PX-series blowers utilize a high efficiency motor spinning at about 3,500 RPM to generate blower speeds up to 18,000 RPM. Because the motor utilizes pulleys and belts, less heat is generated from the motor overall - eliminating the potential for premature bearing failures and reducing energy usage and overall costs.
Longevity - Paxton's PX-series blowers are configured and built to provide the exact amount of flow and pressure required by the air delivery devices it's paired with. This leads to an increase in longevity, no back pressure or unwanted heat, and the minimum amount of energy is required for operation. However, direct drive blowers are limited to the size of the motors. This means that in most cases, the blower is much larger than needed and a VFD is required to trial and error the pressure and flow.
Field Serviceable - If your direct drive blower head and/or motor fail prematurely, the entire system would need to be removed and sent off to be repaired, and a replacement blower would need to take its place temporarily. This leads to an increase in downtime and could even put a halt to production. But with Paxton's PX-series blowers, they can be easily serviced in-house by simply replacing the damaged part (blower head, belt, etc.) on site.
Longer Service Life - Paxton's PX-series centrifugal blowers are designed under normal manufacturing settings and maintenance schedules to operate trouble-free for up to 24,000 hours. Intrinsic to the direct drive blowers design, you can expect to repair or replace bearings in less than one production year (or 6,000 hours). This ultimately leads to an increase in downtime and even a loss of production because of the time it takes to remove and replace the damaged system.
Three-Year Warranty - Most direct drive blowers on the market only come with a one-year warranty. With Paxton's PX-series blowers, you receive a full, unmatched three-year warranty.

How can Paxton Products Help?

Finding the best and most efficient centrifugal blower to match your unique application is critical for your plant's every day operations. Our team of experienced Application Engineers and Sales Specialists have decades of knowledge and experience within the industry and are dedicated to helping your business find the best solution for its drying and blow off operations. We will work alongside you to find, and build, the perfect system to match your unique drying and blow off applications. To get started with Paxton Products, fill out our Quick Quote request form on our website, or email us at sales@paxtonproducts.com.

The Importance of Centrifugal Air Blower Maintenance

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 12:43:41 GMT

Why Blower Maintenance?

Paxton Centrifugal Blowers offer highly efficient solutions for drying, blow off, air rinsing, process air and vacuum applications, and much more. Because Paxton Products’ blowers spin at up to 18,000 rpm, maintaining a strict preventative maintenance schedule is critical to ensure system performance and blower efficiency.

Improper blower maintenance can trigger a wide variety of negative consequences. To start, if a blower is not properly maintained, it can result in unplanned downtime and expensive repair costs to resume full production. The warranty for the blower can also be voided if the blower is not properly maintained. Paxton Products requires proper maintenance intervals using only Paxton authorized components. In order to avoid these situations, keeping up with blower maintenance is even more critical for business efficiency.

How can Paxton Products Help?

Within each individual quote, Paxton Products includes the optional maintenance components as a separate part of the quote. These items, tensioners, filters, blower heads, and belts, and all custom engineered and are critical to ensure your blower performs more efficiently, lasts longer, and preserves the blower's 3-year warranty. The easiest way to keep up with blower maintenance is to purchase these maintenance items whenever you purchase a blower system so that your blower can be properly maintained from the start. In addition to this, Paxton Products always recommends that customers follow the maintenance intervals that can be found within the Service and Maintenance Manuals. Proper maintenance could extend blower lifetime, eliminate unwanted downtime, and save you money!

Be sure to read your Service and Maintenance Manual and check out the various Maintenance Components on our website! For further questions on how you can maintain your blower, contact Paxton Products Support at (800)441-7475.

Using Air Knife Length to Size a Blower

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 12:30:00 GMT

In order to maximize airflow from your Paxton blower system, our application engineers utilize both blower performance curves and air delivery device resistance curves to properly size a Paxton blower system. Every blower has a peak efficiency range where the blower should be operated at to ensure maximum power, peak efficiency, and maximum blower life. Normally, air delivery devices are selected first then, based on what air delivery devices were selected, the blower is selected to power the chosen air delivery devices.

When pairing air delivery devices with a blower, both size and quantity matter. If multiple air delivery devices are chosen and the blower does not have enough horsepower, the system will underperform and could draw more current that than the motor is rated for causing the motor to fail prematurely. On the other hand, using too few air knives with an oversized blower will cause excessive heat buildup, effectively shortening the life of the blower head. Both of these scenarios will result in the blower operating outside of its peak efficiency range, therefore reducing the efficiency and shortening the life of the blower.

If a customer has a question about adding an air knife to their system, ask our application engineers if their current Paxton blower can handle that addition.

Cheaper is Usually Not Better

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 13:16:00 GMT

When buying an industrial air blower and air knife system, buying an inexpensive system often times leads to higher overall cost of ownership. For example, regen, direct drive and/or squirrel cage blowers are easy solutions to purchase because of their low cost, but their performance usually disappoints. These blowers are often only 20 – 40% efficient resulting in:

Inadequate air flow and pressure to achieve the drying or blow off performance needed
Higher energy costs

Poor blower performance results in poor product quality, slowed production, and potentially downtime. These costs far outweigh any savings from the lower purchase price.

Paxton blowers, on the other hand, are custom-engineered to your drying or blow off application. Our engineers have over 75 years of airflow technology experience, so they will know how to solve your application need. A Paxton blower uses less horsepower to achieve the same airflow as the cheaper blowers resulting in significant energy savings. For example, a regen blower may need 30hp to dry pipe extrusions whereas a Paxton blower only needs a 15 hp to dry the same extrusions. Paxton prides themselves on blower durability, longevity, and performance with thousands of blowers in excellent condition still out in the field for 10+ years (and many for over 20 years!). Paxton provides customers with a maintenance schedule and video instructions allowing customers to properly maintain their blowers in-house reducing downtime for production. If you are interested in the benefits your company can receive from using a Paxton blower click here.

Why does a Pulley System Result in Better Blower Performance?

Thu, 20 May 2021 17:03:00 GMT

Two common types of blowers are belt-driven and direct drive. Direct Drive blowers connect the blower head directly to the motor, and the motor “directly drives” the blower. Out of necessity, the blower and the motor rotate at the same speed. In a belt-driven system, on the other hand, the motor and blower head are connected via a belt drive system, enabling the motor and the blower to rotate at different speeds. The motor pulley and the blower pulley are connected via a belt, and the size ratio between the two pulleys dictates the speed of the blower head, determining the resulting flow and pressure.

Why does a two-pulley system result in a better performance?

First, a two-pulley system provides flexibility in the speed of the blower, to adjust for application specific needs. A direct drive blower operates at the same speed as the motor. In order to adjust the speed and the air flow characteristics, a variable frequency drive (VFD) is required. A two-pulley system, on the other hand, can be adjusted by varying the pulley sizes. For example, a Paxton PX-750 centrifugal blower can achieve flow rates ranging from 340 – 700 cfm, at pressures from 30 – 80” H2O, depending on what pulley size is used.
Secondly, a two-pulley system extends the bearing life of the blower bearings, by moving the bearings away from the heat generated by the motor. In a direct drive blower, the bearings are in direct contact with the motor heat, and therefore, direct drive blowers require bearing changes every 6000 hours, whereas bearings in a two-pulley system will last for many years.
And finally, unlike direct drive blowers, two pulley blower systems use a standard 3 phase induction motor, which is readily available in the market. In return, the customer receives a cost-efficient option and avoids purchasing a specialty motor. Most of the maintenance required on a two-pulley system can be completed in-house.

How are Paxton’s two-pulley systems unique?

Paxton’s centrifugal belt-driven blowers utilize a combination of varying sizes of motor and blower pulleys, custom-engineered for each application. What’s in it for the customer? Paxton is able to dial into the most energy efficient and effective performance for each application. Paxton’s focus is on giving their end user a blower that reaches peak efficiencies of 80%, reducing the energy cost by much as 2.5 – 10 hp, as compared to other blower systems. And compared to compressed air drying and blow off systems, Paxton Products’ two pulley blower system utilizes energy better to reduce electricity costs by 80%. Paxton Products has durable and reliable blowers and air delivery systems AND they have application engineers who have over 75+ years of combined experience in air flow technology. With this knowledge, Paxton is the unsurpassed leader in Engineering expertise and support before and after solution development.

So why Paxton Products? Because we blow air smarter!

Why Choose a Paxton Belt-Driven Blower over a Direct drive Blower?

Thu, 20 May 2021 14:52:00 GMT

Paxton Products receives many questions as to why we offer a belt-driven blower, rather than a direct drive system. Let’s looks at the features and benefits of each. Direct drive blower systems connect the blower head directly to the motor. Both the motor and the blower spin at about 18,000 rpm, so this requires a robust and expensive motor. The direct drive system also relies on the bearing in the motor to provide optimal blower life and performance. Unfortunately, the high-speed operation of the motor often results in bearing failure within a year of service. Once these blowers fail, the user may need to shut their entire line down while they ship that blower back to the blower manufacturer for maintenance. Through this process, the user not only has the cost of the repair, but also may suffer from the loss of production.

Paxton’s highly engineered blower systems counteracts the failures with an inexpensive alternative, by using a two-pulley system connected by a drive belt, to allows the motor to run at 3,400 rpm while the blower runs at 18,000 rpm. This belt-drive system provides longevity and reliability, with an easy maintenance routine performed by user’s maintenance team. With proper belt maintenance, downtime is minimized. In fact, with proper maintenance, Paxton’s belt-driven blowers carry a three-year warranty.

Below is a comparison chart of a Paxton Belt-Driven Centrifugal Blower and a direct drive blower.

BLOWERS	BENEFITS	DRAWBACKS
	Flexibility in terms of RPM Speed to adjust to specific application needs Longevity: comes standard with a best in class 3-year warranty Cost-efficient- up to 35% more efficient to operate than our competitors blowers Maintenance can be completed in-house Does not require a special variable frequency drive (VFD) Standard 3 phase induction motor (readily available)	Belt dust may prohibit use in class 10,000 clean room applications
	No belt- ideal for class 10,000 clean room applications Compact Fewer moving parts Custom-made to each customer	Bearings often fail within a year Expensive bearing replacement required annually Bearing replacement usually must be completed by the manufacturer, causing extended downtime Expensive to change speed and performance