Robotic ceramic spraying prospects

       The previous spraying equipment used a reciprocating machine to cooperate with an active spray gun for simple spraying. With the rapid development of skills and the diversification of products, the simple reciprocating machine can no longer meet the requirements of different shapes and complex spraying processes. The industrial flexible robot spraying technology has irreversibly become an indispensable part of the coating production line.



In order to seek higher power and greater sensitivity in the spraying process, robotics has been introduced into the automotive industry since the 1990s. The spraying robot is a branch of the big family of robots. It has achieved rapid development in the application of high-quality spraying. The spraying robot mainly includes three parts: the robot body, the atomization spraying system, and the spraying control system.



Atomization spray system includes: flow controller, atomizer and air pressure regulator.







The spraying control system includes air pressure analog control, flow output analog control and gun signal control.







Compared with traditional mechanical spraying, the selection of spraying robots greatly reduces the labor intensity of manual spraying, and solves the problems of uneven thickness of artificial spraying and unstable mood. Leave of absence for family reasons and personal mood swings will affect the quality of spraying products. The tireless work of robots not only saves labor costs for enterprises, but also improves the quality of spraying.



Since the spraying robot will operate stably and repeatedly according to the engineer's program instructions, the spray gun and the workpiece maintain a predetermined distance and viewpoint, the output paint volume is also set, and the atomization effect is also preset. The robot can also take the spray gun to reach the parts that are difficult to spray manually. Because the installation method of the flexible robot is very sensitive, it can be installed on the ground, hung upside down on the top of the spray booth and on the side of the spray booth to spray paint. Not only that, due to the stability and consistency of spraying, the robot will not overspray, which greatly saves paint and improves the recovery rate of paint.



Anman attaches great importance to enterprises in the spraying process. One of the great contributions of spraying robots is to replace spraying operators from risky working environments and monotonous working conditions, which can reduce the company’s spending on protective equipment and It reduces the compensation cost and legal cost for subsequent physical injury of workers caused by working environment factors. The flexibility of the robot itself determines that it can be installed in a high-density production line or space, and there can be various installation methods such as ground, wall, guide rail, and ceiling, and the size of the robot is different. This reduces the area of the spray booth and saves the cost of the site. The spraying environment is also required to be able to be maintained, and the reduction of space can reduce the energy consumption.



The development of spraying robots is very agile. The previous spraying robots could not change the flow rate at any time in the middle of a spraying program. Today, the control of the flow is directly controlled in the robot's control system, making the flow control more accurate and fast. In terms of explosion-proofing of robots, the gas positive pressure explosion-proof method is now widely used, which is to close the electrical components such as the motor on the robot arm in the casing, and the casing is fed with a flame retardant gas of 25pa higher than the external pressure during operation to avoid the working environment. The entry of combustible gas and the real-time monitoring of the air pressure in the casing make the safety level of the spraying robot very high. In order to reduce the time of on-site orbit programming, the robot offline programming skills have been used, and the orbit instructions of the robot can be generated through the orbit screen of the computer programming software, which saves the time in the robot teaching. At the same time, the development of robot vision has also brought good news to the enterprise. The same workpiece cooperates with machine vision, so there is no need to worry about the inconsistent placement of the workpiece on the hanger, and the messy workpiece can also be sprayed. Correct your own orbital orientation, so that the workpiece can get a good spray effect.



Among the quality elements of robotic spraying, an important element is the control of the thickness of the paint film. The thickness of the dry film is F*N*M/S*W, F is the flow rate, N is the volume solid content of the paint, and M is the paint volume. The handling rate, S is the gun speed, and W is the width of the spray pattern.



There are two types of flow control. One is to use a metering gear pump, that is, the volume obtained per revolution is stable. The robot supplies paint quantitatively by controlling the speed of the metering pump. In this type of system, the power of the paint Pressure generated from the gear pump. The second is controlled by a closed-circuit system composed of a flowmeter and a throttle valve. In this type of system, the pressure of the paint comes from the paint supply system, and the flowmeter obtains the flow signal and transmits it to the robot system for comparison with the calibrated value. When the flow rate When there is an error, the robot adjusts the flow by changing the opening and closing degree of the throttle valve. The use of the second scheme to control the stability of the paint supply pressure is very high.



The first factor that affects the handling rate of paint is the selection of spraying equipment. There are obvious differences in the handling rate of paint by ordinary air spray guns, electrostatic air spray guns and rotary cups. The second factor affecting the handling rate of paint is static electricity. The control of the speed of the gun is also critical. In production, the speed of the quilt is generally 600 to 1000mm/s, and the speed of the air spray gun is between 800 and 1500mm/s. One factor that ultimately affects the film thickness is the width of the spray pattern. For an air spray gun, the ratio of the atomizing air pressure to the fan air pressure has a linear effect on the width of the spray pattern. Therefore, when correcting the corresponding spray flow, it is necessary to consider that the width of the spray width is directly affected by the adjustment of the atomization and air pressure values.



Xuzhou Hengyi coating engineer said, "Many small and medium-sized manufacturers are still using the powder coating technology of the last century, using reciprocating machines and automatic spray guns. The automation technology has improved, but the cost has not come down. Many Manufacturers have demand, but no funds, so there is still a broad market space for low-cost reciprocating machines and automatic spray guns."