Air duster

[MarkPAman]

Mark - your link is scrambled somehow?

 

So it is.

 

Let's try another.

My link

 

You gan get quite a bit of pressure into these, but I'm not sure how long it would last without liquid. I think there's one in my shed, but it's late, dark and raining, so any experiments will have to wait

[alistermorton]

That's not a bad idea, Mark. Maybe one of these sprayers with its larger reservoir, used dry?

[Dave m]

Back in the day we used to service loads of AV equipment in a college over the summer.We had a home made compressor/air pump.It didn't have a reservoir so you just switched it on and a hose blew air. I don't know about moisture content but we would just wave the end inside the OHP/carousel and blast dust out. Thinking about it, I have a car jump pack with tyre inflator that came with a thing to blow up footballs.

Only thing is that both the diy compressor and battery pack made the heck of a noise.

[musht]

Garden sprayer won't work, Screwfix have a similar model lot cheaper, liquid isn't compressible like air, it's why they test pressure vessels with water.

 

Tyre inflators tiny piston pump, get pressure over time but no volume.

Edited February 3, 2021 by musht

[sunray]

I use a tyre 'track pump' for so many things. They usually come with a selection of nozzles for inflating things which make lovely jets for blowing dust etc.

[alistermorton]

I can see why a small one hand mister mightn't work, but the pump action garden sprays get up quite a pressure in the reservoir - they have to have a pressure relief valve so that they don't split the seams.

[J Pearce]

I've got a pump action garden sprayer, so I just tested this.

It sort of works, but it required a lot of pumping to achieve a blast of air that starts out average strength and rapidly falls to a gentle flow. Useful in a bind perhaps but cleaning out equipment in this method would rapidly get dull.

 

Bike style pumps are ok - bit like the squeezy bulb camera cleaner, a good short blast that is easy to repeat. Good for smaller scale detail work.

 

I think my solution will be one of the electric pumped devices, probably mains for my personal use, but might push for a battery one at work to retain the same convenience of canned air.

[cedd]

Not a solution to this problem, but maybe a project for me to play with sometime;

 

I wonder if a pneumatic ram arrangement could deliver a nice blast of air, isolated from the compressor air. You could have a small diameter piston in a cylinder. This would be connected to the compressor via a trigger, and would drive forward a large diameter piston in another cylinder, which would exhaust through a pipe to a hand held Lance. Squeeze the trigger and high pressure compressor air drives the small ram quickly along its cylinder. This small piston drives the big piston which forces a large volume of lower pressure air (which could have been filtered on entry via a one way valve and filter) out of its cylinder and out of the Lance. Hey presto you get a nice blast of clean air that hasn't been through a compressor.

[sunray]

Not a solution to this problem, but maybe a project for me to play with sometime;

 

I wonder if a pneumatic ram arrangement could deliver a nice blast of air, isolated from the compressor air. You could have a small diameter piston in a cylinder. This would be connected to the compressor via a trigger, and would drive forward a large diameter piston in another cylinder, which would exhaust through a pipe to a hand held Lance. Squeeze the trigger and high pressure compressor air drives the small ram quickly along its cylinder. This small piston drives the big piston which forces a large volume of lower pressure air (which could have been filtered on entry via a one way valve and filter) out of its cylinder and out of the Lance. Hey presto you get a nice blast of clean air that hasn't been through a compressor.

Wouldn't it be just as easy [or even easier] to operate the ram by hand?

Besides the water in the jet is mostly due to being compressed, which will also happen in the ram.

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by sunray

[J Pearce]

I have used a syringe in the past for a quick blow of air. Just limited on how much air you get for each stroke.

[sunray]

I have used a syringe in the past for a quick blow of air. Just limited on how much air you get for each stroke.

Quite popular in photographic circles too as any dirt can be seen thought the clear plastic. Edited February 4, 2021 by sunray

[Andrew C]

Just a thought before the "Safety Police" arrive.

Beware cleaning really dusty rigs in old theatres that haven't been deep cleaned in decades in this way. That dust could have all sorts of nasties in it you really don't want to be breathing. Even the stuff in a modern projector could have a lot of other peoples skin cells in it... [yuk]

 

[J Pearce]

Definitely!

 

Thankfully the venue I'm deep cleaning was brand new in 2017, and it's likely I'll be wearing a facemask to do the work anyway...

[IRW]

Just a thought before the "Safety Police" arrive.

Beware cleaning really dusty rigs in old theatres that haven't been deep cleaned in decades in this way. That dust could have all sorts of nasties in it you really don't want to be breathing. Even the stuff in a modern projector could have a lot of other peoples skin cells in it... [yuk]

Beat me to it...! :P

 

Whenever I'm running maintenance jobs, the general rule is air duster should generally be used in conjunction with a hoover nozzle positioned such that displaced dust gets sucked up rather than blown into the air. Eye protection and dust masks should also be considered.

[J Pearce]

As a follow up, I've just ordered a Compuclean Xpert, for £60. I'll report back once it's arrived and I've blown the dust out of things (and as my house has been a building site since Oct 2019 there's a lot of dust to blow out!)