ebm-papst Fans, Blowers and Technology

If you work in a climate controlled office cubicle with a low ceiling, the mystical term “thermal destratification” may never play a role in your comfort or productivity.

However, if you’re on a production floor or in a warehouse that swelters in the summer and freezes in the winter, shivered or sweated in an enclosed stadium or mall, or peered into a frost-covered grocer’s freezer, you may appreciate the benefits of a device that evens out temperatures by continually exchanging a building’s hot top air layer with cooler, lower layers.

Nine years ago, entrepreneur Ray Avedon, president of Longmont, Colorado-based Avedon Engineering and founder of Airius LLC, invented the turbine-shaped Air Pear Thermal Equalizer® to solve air flow problems and to save energy at his contract manufacturing facilities.

 Ray Avedon with the AirPear

He hit upon a novel design and concept for a ceiling mounted air mover that would meet the needs of enclosed spaces – manufacturing facilities, warehouses, groceries, aircraft hangers and gymnasiums – that needed to stabilize temperature and humidity levels. 

The energy efficient air turbine, named the Air Pear® by Airius for its appealing shape, was born. Initially developed in five models offering progressive voltage and size options, the more than 30,000 Air Pear® systems that have been installed since 2004 have been saving buildings — such Siemens Transportation Systems’ rail maintenance facilities in Acton, UK — 35 percent or more on energy costs with an ROI of 12 to 36 months.

Before 2006, Airius sourced internal fan assemblies for its Air Pear systems from a low technology manufacturer. Airius had to meet specific regulations by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stipulating that pharmaceutical warehouse temperatures vary by no more than two degrees from ceiling to floor. The company needed to work with a manufacturer that would be able to deliver a dependable, controllable fan that would meet FDA’s stringent requirements.

Enter ebm-papst, Inc., the North American headquarters for ebm-papst, a global manufacturer of energy efficient air moving systems.

“At our request, ebm-papst came up with a special fan motor – the EC motor – to facilitate our marketing with the pharmaceutical industry. That motor series is now the norm for our Air Pear destratification product line,” expained Avedon.

“The beauty of our axial fans’ EC motor is that everything can be remotely controlled. There are no separate motor speeds to hassle with … meaning dependable consistent ventilation and ease for the customer,” said Randy Rau, ebm-papst’s Denver-based sales engineer.

Six years later, Airius utilizes ebm-papst fans in 75 percent of its Air Pear systems. According to Rau, linked arrays of remotely controlled Air Pears that incorporate ebm-papst EC axial fans are installed in hundreds of applications.

The customers are diverse; Air Pear usage ranges from warehouses and plants to grocery stores, movie theaters, even a dairy producer that keeps its cows cool to increase milk production. Air Pear Model 45s are being used to equalize temperature and humidity in Washington D.C.’s botanical garden and soon will be installed at Hartford, Conn./Springfield, Mass.’s Bradley Airport. The larger Air Pear Model 100s are installed in aircraft hangers, large atriums, retail malls and sports stadiums.

As part of its GreenTech commitment to energy efficiency, ebm-papst Inc.’s U.S. headquarters in Farmington, Conn. recently installed 12 Air Pear units in an area that formerly served as warehouse space and now houses the company’s assembly operations. According to ebm-papst Director of Manufacturing Brian Ladegard, the units, which are wired to be controlled as one collective “node” as well as operate independently, serve three purposes.

“The Air Pear units will help keep employees in our assembly building comfortable during winter months by circulating warm air to floor level,” said Ladegard. “We anticipate saving on energy costs by equalizing temperatures in this building. And because ebm-papst’s fans and motors are at the heart of the Air Pear Thermal Equalizers, observing them operate in our facility allows us to conduct practical on-site research and development and offer new configurations to Airius that can help them reach new markets.”

Under rainy skies, a celebration of green

While last Wednesday’s showers prevented an outdoor celebration, the weather didn’t dampen our Every Day is a Green Day luncheon at ebm-papst’s US headquarters in Farmington, Connecticut. Employees have been preparing for this day by bringing their old and outdated electronic devices to the office for recycling.

Just a small sampling of the many electronics collected this week!

Employees also took the opportunity to purchase energy efficient and environmentally friendly CFL lighting from TechniArt, Inc. and had the ability to shred personal documents with Cintas.

After eating locally-sourced hot dogs, burgers and strawberry shortcake, we learned what many employees do to be green at home and work with a trivia contest.

The winning answers:

“At work, I requested a filtration system for the Deburring Machine, and was granted... My house has energy efficient insulation, windows, faucets, thermostats on a timer set for occupancy times, no greater than 58°F. We grow our own vegetables, fruits, have a compost bin for the garbage. I have rain barrels to catch rain water for plants, a wood stove heats our house. Our town has, and we utilize, a transfer station, recycle bins. We have solar panels for hot water. We have CFLs throughout the house (inside & outside).” Thomas Dunbar, Facilities Maintenance.

“I supplement my transportation needs with an electric bicycle of my own design. Counting the 28 miles I put on it this weekend, I’ve logged over 12,300 miles on it. I use solar thermal panels of my own design to supplement my upstairs heating in the winter time. The panels use a re-programmed older revision ALU board and sample 5000 series fans from the previous decade. I drive a Smart car which has cut my commuting gas consumption in half. I’ve switched over to LED lighting in approximately half of my household.” Charles Blow, Design Engineer.

We also formally ‘threw the switch’ on the power inverter to begin converting energy produced by the new, additional 50 kilowatts of solar panels on the roof of our production facility into power for our facility for a total of 100 kw now installed. When that power isn’t needed, we’re sending excess power back to ‘the grid’.

Flipping the switch!

ebm-papst President and CEO Bob Sobolowski and Vice President of Engineering Scott Beauchamin with Mark Waldo, president of Waldo Electric, with Waldo’s energy inverter in the plant’s power control room.

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ebm-papst’s trash patrol hauls lots of junk

June 14

On Friday, the trash pickup team from ebm-papst donned tear proof clothing and braved weeds, thorns and wild animals to haul hidden trash from a public area next to Farmington River off of Route 4. Among the interesting items we found: tires and traffic cones! 

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Every Day is a GreenDay! Closing:

June 18

A closing newsletter was sent out to all employees, highlighting the winners of the trivia contest. A compilation of tips from all of the contest entries was included, to encourage the employees of ebm-papst to continue living a green life style.

Here are some different ways to expand your efforts:

• Motion detector lights throughout the house

• Wrap water tank to make it more efficient

• Wash clothes in cold water and line dry them

• Set heat to 65 degrees and AC to 80 degrees

• Use a vegetable garden to supplement your meals

• Bring all unwanted books to the library

• Use a composte pile to recycle kitchen waste

• Fill a bin with soapy water to wash pots and pans

• Use rain barrels to collect water for a garden and house plants

• Buy produce from local farm stands

By Bob Sobolewski

To demonstrate that everybody can do something for a more environmentally friendly world, this year employees at ebm-papst offices around the globe are organizing Every Day is a Green Day campaigns, developing unique ways to demonstrate our shared GreenTech philosophy.

Next week (June 11-16) is our time to celebrate Every Day is a Green Day with a special week at ebm-papst’s U.S. headquarters. We’ve got a full lineup of activities, including the kickoff of our Every Day is a Green Day Video Contest. Students 13-18 years of age who live in Hartford County can enter the contest by submitting a brief video showing the creative ways they incorporate green practices into their lives at home and school. Deadline to submit videos is August 11; winners will be announced on August 27.

The student who submits the most compelling green video will receive a grand prize of an iPad 3 (16GB WiFi model). The second prizewinner will win a family trip for four to the Connecticut Science Center, including lunch for four at the museum’s Café and four tickets to a performance at the IMAX Theater. The third prizewinner will receive a ‘green’ basket of environmentally friendly products.

Check our Faceboook page regularly to view students’ ‘green’ videos!

We’ve launched a “How are You Green?” contest for employees, who are submitting their green living practices and tips, and a Green Trivia contest. Employee winners will be announced for both contests on June 15.

An adventurous team of seven ebm-papst employees will scour the fields around our facility on June 12 or 13 and remove trash wherever they find it.

During a green luncheon and employee social at our facility on June 13 we’ll be using locally sourced burgers and hot dogs from Saint’s in Southington. The Super Natural Market and Deli will deliver locally sourced ingredients for strawberry shortcake! Employees will bring their personal documents for shredding by Cintas, which will have a truck on site between 3 and 4 p.m.

Also on June 13, from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., employees will be able to purchase energy efficient lighting from Collinsville-based TechniArt, Inc. during a Lighting Fair, with displays in our café and at the receiving/loading dock.

Here’s wishing you a summer of exploration, relaxation and green living!

By Bob Sobolewski, President and CEO at ebm-papst Inc.

FIRST® Championship

What keeps ebm papst’s team – our engineering, production and marketing people – fresh and energized? Observing the creativity and fun that 30,000 motivated young people can generate over three days during a riveting robotics event that’s called “The Olympics of the Mind.”

Continuing our support of FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and FIRST teams in Connecticut, from April 26-28 we travelled to the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, where students, fans, families, educators and company leaders from all over the world gathered for the annual FIRST ^® Championship.

More than 600 teams from 32 countries demonstrated Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition® (that means competing AND working with your opponent) in the three levels of FIRST: FIRST^® LEGO^® League (FLL); FIRST^® Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST^® Robotics Competition (FRC) while 40 teams of 6 to 9-year-olds showcased their smarts during the Junior FIRST^® LEGO^® League World Festival Expo.

In addition to serving on FIRST®’s regional planning committee and chairing Connecticut FIRST®’s executive advisory board, I’ve been honored to serve as an FRC judge at both regional and national competitions for almost 15 years. Every year, the teams get better and the judging gets tougher!

ebm-papst’s booth at the championship helped students and mentors learn not only about the small ebm-papst tubeaxial fans that cool their teams’ robots, but also how our larger radial and axial fans are employed across dozens of industries and hundreds of applications.

Bill Aston, Team 178 mentor and ebm-papst Inc. Operations Manager with the Enforcers at the CT Regional's.

By Bob Sobolewski, President and CEO at ebm-papst USA

Two weeks ago, after CBIA’s Business Day at the Capitol, Don Beckwith posted here about the challenges that Connecticut manufacturers have in attracting new employees. While cost of living and wages have a big impact on our efforts to remain competitive, there’s another piece of the puzzle that’s equally important: helping new generations become adept, capable and confident employees of the future.

Our state’s business community has a responsibility to enhance our children’s education in ways that build their critical thinking and technical skills. We can help them aspire to be team members and leaders, regardless of the professions they choose, by showing them what we do every day and helping them visualize themselves within our companies.

In 1989, ebm-papst Inc. began its journey to support a fledgling organization called FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). Founded by inventor Dean Kaman, FIRST is now an international program that inspires nearly 300,000 young people from kindergarten to 12^th grade to get involved with science, engineering, math and technology and helps them develop self-confidence, teamwork and leadership skills. ebm-papst began to supply our air-moving products to FIRST competitions, as well as engineering expertise and manufacturing support to teams. That support continues to this day.

Being involved in FIRST is a labor of love…and belief. Just ask Electrical Engineering Manager Hogan Eng, who devotes nights and weekends to helping Woodbury’s FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team #2836, Team Beta. Or Operations Manager Bill Aston, who has mentored Farminton’s FRC Team #178, the 2^nd Law Enforcers, for nine years. Or everyone in the company who has gone the extra mile to help manufacture parts for these teams’ robots and support their transportation, logistics and community outreach efforts.

Are our efforts working?

Brandeis University recently surveyed young people in FIRST Robotics Competitions around the country and compared them to a group of non-FIRST students with similar backgrounds and academic experiences, including math and science. The survey revealed that FIRST students are:

• More than three times as likely to major specifically in engineering.

• Roughly 10 times as likely to have had an apprenticeship, internship, or co-op job in their freshman year.

• Significantly more likely to expect to achieve a post-graduate degree.

• More than twice as likely to expect to pursue a career in science and technology.

• Nearly four times as likely to expect to pursue a career specifically in engineering.

• More than twice as likely to volunteer in their communities.

Connecticut FIRST’s big event – the FIRST Robotics Competition Northeast Utilities Connecticut Regionals – will take place Friday, March 30 and Saturday, March 31 at the Connecticut Convention Center. This year’s regionals will bring more than 2400 high school students on 64 elite robot teams from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Texas who both compete and cooperate in this year’s game, Rebound Rumble. The event is free and open to the public.

If you’ve already been to Connecticut’s FIRST Regional robotics competition, you know how exciting and inspiring they are. If you haven’t, I invite you to bring your children, your neighbors’ children and their teachers. We’re going to have a blast!

by Joe Landrette, Market Manager at ebm-papst.

The US consumes about 4.40 trillion kWh of electric energy (Tomorrow is Greener 10/2011). Two percent of that power consumption, or 88 billion kWh, is used by data centers, which provide us with services like Apple's iCloud or Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

Because power savings is critical for hardware manufacturers and their customers, many companies are migrating from large facility data centers to portable/modular data centers that are often set up within sea containers. This new generation of data center is often fitted to house many racks of IT equipment that have ultra efficient cooling systems inside.

Not only can modular/portable data centers be manufactured and deployed more rapidly than traditional data centers, they also employ cooling solutions that can be 30 times more efficient than facility-style cooling systems and can save up to $500,000 a year in energy costs!

Because the majority of portable and modular data centers don’t have the same heat/cooling duct losses experienced in traditional data centers, the new configurations can super-charge their energy efficiency by incorporating ebm-papst’s range of EC blowers and fans, from our small 80mm fans up to 1250mm models.

The new modular/portable data centers also provide an opportunity for ebm-papst Inc. to offer builders air flow and design management strategies and custom sheet metal assemblies. Our products and engineering support services are helping shape how data centers are joining the earth-friendly movement and changing the future of both indoor and outdoor data storage.

For more information on Data Centers, contact Joe Landrette at Joe.Landrette@us.ebmpapst.com or call ebm-papst at 860-674-1515

-by Don Beckwith, senior vice president of finance and administration at ebm-papst

Wednesday, February 29, Accounting Manager Jack Relidzinski and I attended Connecticut Business Day, sponsored by the Connecticut Business Industry Association (CBIA) and the Connecticut Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives.

The event took place in the state Legislative Office Building and featured Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman as keynote speaker, Senate Republican Leader John McKinney (R-Fairfield) and DECD Commissioner Catherine Smith.

Each speaker focused on the importance of education reform, as Governor Malloy prepared to kick off his Education Reform Tour on March 1. Our children are lagging in reading and critical thinking skills. The legislators recognize the importance of fixing this issue, but also recognize it will take many years to do so. Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman assured everyone that the millions of dollars this agenda item will consume are in the new proposed budget, and there will be no new taxes necessary to make it happen (this got a nice laugh from the crowd). But what this achievement gap means is that our workforce is in jeopardy, and finding skilled workers could become a significant challenge in the future. This, coupled with current challenges, puts Connecticut’s companies in a tenuous position.

Right now, manufacturers, in particular, are having a difficult time attracting lower wage employees to Connecticut and retaining them because of the cost of living, among other issues. I suspect other companies are facing the same challenges, because the main comment coming repeatedly from the crowd was, “Stop putting millions of dollars into attracting new businesses to Connecticut and focus on keeping the businesses that are here and have been committed to the state for years.”

The message was clear – Connecticut is currently not a business-friendly state. Each of the speakers acknowledged there is a lot of work to be done. In the meantime, I ask other Connecticut businesses what they are doing to attract and retain employees. Please post any comments below or on our Facebook page!

The AHR Expo is the largest HVAC&R trade show we exhibit in, and it’s coming up fast. With less then a month to go, it's getting a little crazy in the Marketing department! Preparations have become a daily occurence at ebm-papst - we even dream about AHR. Along with packing extra clothes to keep warm during a visit to the Windy City in January, we'll be bringing many of our products used in the HVAC&R market.

Some featured products will include:

• HyBlade (www.ebmpapst.com/hyblade)

• RadiCal (info.ebmpapst.com/RadiCal)

• i-Maxx (info.ebmpapst.com/i-maxx)

• Plenum (Plug) Fan (info.ebmpapst.com/plenum)

This week, literature, promotional giveaways and bottled water (in case our visitors get thirsty) are being packed up and shipped to our new display company, DisplayCraft. Once they receive this last batch of supplies, the whole booth will be sent on it's journey to Chicago!

This year's booth will be a little different from our past booths at AHR, thanks to DisplayCraft! They've helped up redesign the layout of the exhibit to make it more spacious and functional. We're very excited to see the final result at the show on January 23rd-25th!

Throughout the show, expert ebm-papst Market Management teams that represent each industry will be there to expertly solve any air moving problems you might have!

For anyone who wants to do a little homework before visiting the ebm-papst booth (#2046) at AHR, here is a selection of some of the literature that will be available.

• VACR
• Heating
• GreenTech EC Technology

Click here to register for the show!

We hope to see you there!

Campaigns for ‘being green’ are everywhere. The plastic water bottle I’m drinking out of uses about 1/3 of its label just to tell you that they’ve redesigned their bottles in an effort to be green. Here’s an idea, use less paper and make a smaller label. On my desk, a box of all natural sweetener - that’s made of recycled fiber - requests that you recycle it once it’s empty (and I will). More noticeable than that I see green buttons filled with white checks everywhere I look - the symbol for ebm-papst’s own green campaign, GreenTech.   

  Less of a campaign, and more a way of life, GreenTech is a name  put to the philosophy ebm-papst has used for decades. "Each new  product that we develop has to be better than its predecessor in terms of economy and ecology." An example of that philosophy in action is the ACmaxx series. This series started as an attempt to advance the standard technology of the basic  AC fan. The problem with the basic AC fan is its poor efficiency compared to DC technology.

• By giving our fan the ability to operate on AC mains power around the world, while retaining the AC fan’s mounting dimensions, a new standard was created. But this wasn’t good enough.

• While the ACmaxx could fit applications new and old because of its wide voltage range and compact dimensions, there was one problem. Due to the complexity of the electronics, the installation depth couldn’t replace all AC fans. Our next step was streamlining this series into an even better model – the i-Maxx.

The i-Maxx takes the ACmaxx concept to a whole new level.

• By integrating the drive, fan and converter electronics into the motor hub, the i-Maxx has the same dimensions of conventional AC fans, while maintaining the ability to connect to worldwide AC mains.

• We didn’t stop there. The i-maxx is also quieter, more compact, and more efficient than its predecessor. 

This way of life is not just for designing new and more efficient fans. It’s also in practice in the offices and in building the factories, locally and internationally. At the US corporate headquarters in Farmington, CT, and throughout all of the international locations, the employees are urged to recycle, not just bottles and cans, but paper as well, with several paper bins located throughout the office. On of the factories located in Hollenbach, Germany, uses solar power to generate its own energy. The factory was also designed to convert residual heat into a usable ventilation system. Here, at the corporate headquarters in Farmington, a renovation was just completed. Solar panels are up and running, providing our building with lighting that shuts off after a period of inactivity. That will keep us from being too sedentary- but that’s another issue for another company. Many companies are jumping on the green bandwagon, while ebm-papst has been driving.