On a basic automatic line, the guns move up and down without knowing what is passing in front of them. The result: powder sprayed into empty space between two parts. The automation of recent years tackles this waste, and it goes further.
Guns that see the part
The first step is detection. Gema's part detection systems recognize the height and width of each part, as well as the gaps between parts, and the guns adjust accordingly. Nordson controls shut off the spray when no part is present. These features are available today, without part-by-part programming.
Robots that learn the motion
Programming a painting robot used to take a specialist. Robots that learn by demonstration change the game: the painter guides the arm by hand once, and the robot repeats the movement. The magazine The Fabricator describes a steel fabricator in South Dakota that runs its paint line this way with three employees.
The autonomous robot, a Quebec lesson
The next step would be a robot that programs itself, from a 3D image of the part. The company Omnirobotic, of Laval, was offering this for powder coating as early as 2021. After a failed financing round in 2022 and a restructuring in 2023, it now builds sanding robots, reports BetaKit. The lesson: coating parts that are always different remains a hard problem.
What we take from it
Automation pays off when the same parts come back in large numbers. For one-off wheels, a car subframe or a small run, an experienced applicator is still faster and more reliable than a robot that has to be programmed. For the recurring runs of our manufacturing customers, on the other hand, these tools are worth following: part detection, in particular, reduces powder loss without changing the result.
In summary
- Part detection adjusts the guns according to the size of each part.
- Robots learn the movement by seeing it done once.
- The fully autonomous robot has not yet proven itself in powder coating.
- Automation pays on large runs; one-off parts remain a matter of hand.
