Metal coating application without masking

Metal coating application without masking

Keywords: Robots, Painting

AXO-SCINTEX in France launched a new production line for the manufacturing of the Peugeot 206 taillights.

Since 1985, this company has been producing lighting and signaling equipment for the automotive industry. More than 150 employees working around the clock are involved in this production.

This spraying system developed by CERGI, France, is a new automated painting process. Stäubli's RX explosion-proof robots brought precision to this application, decreasing paint consumption and consequently production costs,wastes and atmospheric pollution (Plate 6).

The painting installation consists of spraying a partial metal coating of the parabolas on two plastic reflectors (right and left taillights of the Peugeot 206 car).

Before the introduction of the robots, the manufacturing process was performed either by operators working in spray booths or by semi-automatic machines. In both cases, the positioning of masks to protect the areas not to be painted was necessary. Getting rid of these screens posed a technical challenge,and its success allowed heavily decreased production costs of these lamps and highly improved quality consistency.

 Plate 6 StÌubli RX explosion-proof robot

Completely automatic, the cell, which includes a Stäubli RX 90 EX robot,produces 2,600 pairs of reflectors per day. There are no manual operations from the injection of the plastic parts by the press to the assembly station. The two right and left reflectors are loaded on a holder, ensuring correct positioning on one of the four carousel arms. After a rotation of a quarter turn, the parts move to the cleaning station by ionized air blowing. On completion, they turn again just in front of the dry air filter spray booth to be painted.

During the definition of the trajectories representing the outline of the parts to be processed, the distance between the nozzle and the part has been optimized to obtain a good cover quality and an acceptable uniformity of the overtaking area.

The homogeneity of the circular spot of the automatic spray gun, which represents the outline of the part to be painted, is obtained by acting on the robot command parameters (X,Y, Z coordinates, speed, etc.) and the same constant focal distance during the trajectories.

The sprayed product's homogeneity is obtained thanks to the parameter control of the jet width and the possibilities of gun opening and closing in the robot control unit's user-program.

The robot's high precision and repeatability allow a regularity in the overspray area and guarantee finished product quality in terms of photometry.

For more information, please contact: Anna Defenbaugh, Marketing Services Director, Stäubli Corporation, 201 Parkway West, Duncan, SC 29334. Tel: 864 433 1980; Fax: 864 486 5497; E-mail: a.defenbaugh@staubli.com;Web site: www.staublirobotics.com