advanced paint testing spray booth.
Multi-tone coatings in industrial coating processes have always been applied in several passes, where overspray had to be avoided manually. The new OFLA technology for overspray-free painting saves time and material. OFLA-compatible paints must meet high requirements, making their development a challenge for paint manufacturers. We built a machine that enables extensive paint testing in a controlled and safe environment.
reproducible and standardized.
Until now, two-tone coatings on cars, for example, were always applied in two passes. To prevent overspray, adjacent areas were taped off. That was a labor-intensive job in an unhealthy environment. Dürr, a leading manufacturer of coating technology, has developed a solution for applying paint without overspray: OFLA, or ‘Oversprayfreie Lackapplikation’. Manufacturers who supply suitable paints want to be able to test them first on standardized substrates. We therefore built a test machine with a painting robot that performs the required movements reproducibly and extremely accurately. Dürr’s EcoPaintJet system is integrated into our machine, which is completely made of stainless steel.
highlights
- 3-axis paint robot with 600 mm x 400 mm x 400 mm range
- maximum painting speed 1 m/s
- reproducibility ±0.05 mm
- horizontal and vertical paint application
- ATEX-certified (zone 2)
best formulation.
Our paint testing spray booth simulates the movements of a painting robot at the coating line in a controlled, dust-free laboratory environment. To compare different paint formulations, the machine always performs exactly the same movement with high precision. Our machine processes both water-based paints and solvent-based paints and is explosion-proof (ATEX) in view of the latter category. For ATEX certification, our design provides a constant flow of clean air into the test cell. This air flow removes solvent and thus lowers the concentration to a safe level. With the machine’s comprehensive control, paint manufacturers can easily define their test programs and parameters to find the best formulation for their coating products.
Erik Heijdens
send a message“we contribute to sustainability.”
Our test machine is a building block in a development that has made the coating process more efficient and environmentally friendly. With the development of this machine, we contributed to innovation in the paint industry.