Combo-Flo air operated solenoids Airnoids Article page 8

Torture Testing

I used the Racing Instrumentation Progressive Controller that you

read about last month to see how bad I could wear the nitrous plunger.

I set it to pulse the NS500 single Airnoid for the full 10 seconds and just

continued to run bench pass after bench pass after bench pass. I have

to say that this was one of the more boring things I have ever done.

I started with a fresh plunger and made 200 passes. With the pulse rate

speeding things up this amounted to 4000 hits on the plunger. The end

result was that the center bubble of the plunger material moved .004

which still left me with .074 of effective lift capacity. Since I only

need .055 plunger of lift to fully utilize the orifice size I am in good

shape. Pretty outstanding I think. I will trim the bubble off in the lathe

and run this test later when time permits to see if it takes a set or at

least slows down the bubble growth. That would be cool.

I was curious about the clear top on the 400 and 450 series. Granted

you could break it with a hammer, or if you roll the car, but I think it

would hold up just fine to normal use. I sprayed it down with gasoline,

methanol, shop solvent, acetone, brake fluid and a couple of other

mystery chemicals and none of these bothered the finish. I was out of

nitro or I would have tried that particularly interesting cleaning solvent.

The only thing I found so far that could attack it was CRC non

chlorinated Brake Cleaner. Most of us that use brake cleaner know it to

be some good stuff but nasty on many things like paint, powder coating

and anodized components so don't use it to clean the Airnoids. You have

been warned.

Piston Wear

Clear Top

Curious about just how much air is needed to open these Airnoids I hooked up 2 of the gold ones with the appropriate line lengths to simulate a V8 nozzle system. I put a manual shutoff valve at the bottle. The line length from the bottle to the actuator was 8 feet. I gave it a couple of hits normally and then shut off the flow to the actuator. I then bumped the button on and off to see how many times I could open the Airnoids with just the co2 stored in the line between the actuator and the Airnoids. I got 2 shots out of the air stored in the line. I should probably figure out the cubic inches stored there but suffice to say these things need very little volume to open. This means you don't need a big capacity bottle.

CO2 Supply Requirements

I have burned up my share of coils by leaving them on too long when

testing. I decided to try to burn one up on purpose. I wanted to see

what the life of the actuator might be since it only draws 0.6 amp. I

turned it on with 15 volts going to it and walked away. I checked on it

45 minutes later. It was up to 160 degrees surface temperature but it

kept on ticking.

Considering that I have melted coils in ten minutes or less I felt this was

a good thing and did not feel the need to go on to the inevitable end.

This almost no amp, long life means that my Bonneville clients can quit

worrying about carrying spare coils.

Another area that has always needed help in this area is boating