The design requirements for two-tone coatings in automotive production are constantly increasing. At the same time, manufacturers' expectations are growing. The application technology should be able to flexibly apply contrast coatings with different colors and paint types to diverse, even vertical surfaces, without changing the body design or hindering the manufacturing process - and at the lowest possible production and environmental costs. Dürr has further developed the EcoPaintJet to meet this challenge.
The heart of the EcoPaintJet Pro is the applicator which, unlike a rotary atomizer, applies the paint with the aid of a filigree nozzle plate. Barely visible individual nozzles apply the paint to the car body in parallel jets from a distance of up to 25 millimeters. The paint lands on the surface without loss, making two-tone painting possible more quickly and conserving resources without masking. The fact that the nozzles can be closed and opened independently of each other in a fraction of a second opens up completely new design possibilities. This also allows design elements such as trim stripes or contrasting colors to be applied to the bodywork fully automatically. The EcoPaintJet Pro can paint over a wide area as well as apply patterns - a direct transition is also possible. The universal DXQ3D.onsite digital toolbox supports operators in configuring the process parameters; the software automatically calculates the paint paths, and the robot controller also adjusts the paint paths in real time. The speed and tilt angle of the applicator are controlled so that the paint is always applied evenly and there is no overspray.
Not only in new plants, but also in existing plants, EcoPaintJet Pro offers automotive manufacturers the possibility of integrating overspray-free applications. Various processes are available for this purpose, which can be integrated at different points in the paint shop. For example, the contrast coating can be applied to the intermediately dried basecoat or as a single-layer topcoat to the baked clearcoat. The new process offers considerable advantages both in terms of production costs and environmental compatibility: With no overspray, paint separation is no longer necessary and the rest of the car body no longer has to be masked with film, thus saving large quantities of waste. Added to this is better utilization of the paint shops. "Printing instead of spraying is the future of automotive painting," Dr. Lars Friedrich, President & CEO Application Technology Dürr Systems AG, is certain. "Even with vertical surfaces, we can do without overspray and masking altogether. In terms of cost efficiency and sustainability, Dürr has thus taken another step in the right direction with the EcoPaintJet." The new process is currently being integrated into production at an automotive manufacturer and will be used in series production in the second half of 2022.
Read more about this new painting technology and other innovations in automotive painting in mo 3/2022!