A customer in heavy truck vehicle production, currently has several “manual cut-in” zones which precede the robotic Painting Zones. In the manual zones, operators leave the booth to get the resin color and mix it with the appropriate catalyst for the 3:1 required ratio, pour it into their cup guns, return to the spray booth and spray the catalyzed paint.
This customer wishes to eliminate mixture mistakes and provide the manual booth sprayers with a dispenser to ratio the resin/catalyst direct into the cup guns. This customer would also like to eliminate the operators leaving the paint booth, so the system must be capable of being installed directly inside the paint booth.

Engineering Discovery at customer site: 

• System must be Class 1 / Division 1 compatible for installation due to this being solvent borne materials.

• System must be solvent wash-down compatible.

• Operator interface must be intrinsically-safe and solvent impervious.

Our Solution:
The Gravimetrix with intrinsically safe operator interface option

The Gravimetrix system was comprised of a 6 Nozzle Dispense station (5 Resin Colors + 1 Catalyst) positioned above a high resolution scale. A remote installed control enclosure (in the safe area outside the paint booth) houses the controller, and is cabled through the paint booth wall to the dispenser station with an intrinsically-safe operator interface.

Benefits:

• Few moving or exotic parts, easy maintenance.

• All wet surfaces of Stainless Steel construction, wash-down compatible.

• Special solvent impervious intrinsically-safe operator interface.

• Eliminated the need for operators to leave the booth.

• Elimination of 2 “paint tender” labor positions.