Powder Coating of Wheels in a new way. |
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Vertically rotating instead of horizontally rotating. |
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In large powder coating lines for car wheel rims the use of 2 conveyor systems is state of the art. In the pre-teatment and water drying section the wheel rims are usually transported hanging on a ceiling conveyor system. This has the advantage that the media transfers can be kept low. In addition the conveyor can be loaded in a dense way, which keeps the pre-treatment, drying and cooling section short. Very often 2 or even 4 wheel rims are hanging on top of each other. In the powder application area the wheel rims are preferrably positioned on a vertical spindle conveyor and sprayed with powder from below ( wheel inside ) and and from top ( wheel outside ) whilst rotating and then conveyed into the curing section. The disadvantage of this process is that a spindle conveyor must be used, which makes the sealing in the powder application area difficult and the supervision of the powder application process from below to the wheel inside area is almost impossible. |
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 Powder coating of the inside of a rotating car wheel (test configuration). |
| This process requires a roboter which transfers the wheels from the jig of the ceiling conveyor onto the a spindle conveyor. This is a sophisticated and expensive technology. Only very large weels manufacturers with high production rates can afford such systems. For this reason SFB has tested a new process, where the wheels stay in a vertical position on a ceiling conveyor during the whole coating process. The wheels do not have to be transferred anymore from one conveyor system to another and will be pre-treated and powder coated in a hanging position. But, the powder application is performed whilst the wheel is rotating around a horizontal axis , in order to grant a high coating quality. Of course this requires a special jig design. |
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