Pneumatic conveying systems are commonly used in the cotton ginning industry. Inefficiencies in those systems can reduce productivity, create choke ups and result in high operating costs. The fact that inefficient pneumatic conveying systems are costly is nothing new to the ginning industry. But how can system losses be determined and how accurate are the equations recommended for calculating those losses? The purpose of this paper is two-fold: 1) document modifications that were made to the seed cotton unloading system at the USDA-ARS Lubbock, TX ginning laboratory and compare those changes to values that were obtained from using standard friction loss calculations found in the literature, and 2) report the effect that reducing or eliminating the inefficiencies had on power consumption. The results showed that the equations ranged from less than 1% to 19% of the actual measured system losses depending upon the calculation method used. Modifications resulted in a 37% reduction of power usage in the unloading system.