Successfully Rebuilt: Dürr Atomizers Save Paint, Time and Money

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Dürr service specialists adapted the automotive painting robots at KIA Zilina in Slovakia to the Dürr atomizer EcoBell2 ICC with external charging. With this technology, the color change occurs directly in the atomizer, the paint losses during the color change are minimized and the expense for complex cartridge handling are eliminated.

Bietigheim-Bissingen Germany, August 10th, 2011(PressReleasePoint) Long idle times, high paint losses and above average maintenance expenditure motivate paint shop operators to make improvements. In some cases, the only choice is give up an originally selected concept and to use a new technology from a different supplier.
At KIA Zilina in Slovakia, eight ABB painting robots in the waterbased primer line were equipped with rotating atomizers and electrostatic voltage block with canister technology that led to problems in operation again and again. On the one hand, the handling of the canister technology was complicated and the installation uptime was thus limited, and on the other hand, maintenance expenditure increased and there were high paint losses in cartridge purging before the refill. Therefore, Dürr offered KIA a conversion to the Dürr atomizer technology EcoBell2 ICC with external charging.
Conversion to a new technology is not easy in such a situation, however. The production must continue, the changes are still unknown to the workers, but they must bring about improvements as quickly as possible.

This is a case for Dürr service!
After the successful conversion of a robot to the new atomizer technology that delivered good painting results over several weeks, KIA decided to convert the remaining seven robots. Over a 15 week period, the Dürr service specialists gradually adapted the painting robots to the Dürr atomizer EcoBell2 ICC and the dosing pump EcoPump MP. With this technology, the color change occurs directly in the atomizer, the paint losses during the color change are less than 2 ml and the expenditure for the complex cartridge handling can be omitted. What was challenging during this conversion was the fact that there were only short production-free periods available for the integration of the atomizers, high tension cascades, dosing pump and solenoid valves. In February 2011, it was finally possible for the first time to paint according to the Dürr concept. The results are impressive. The paint savings is 0.3 kilogram per car body, and in critical areas a more homogeneous and higher film thickness is achieved than before. The equipment downtimes were halved, and for maintenance every second night shift for cleaning could be omitted.

Company contact:
Dürr Systems GmbH
Harald Voigtländer
Marketing Application Technology
Tel.: +49 7142 78 22 48
Fax: +49 7142 78 22 48
E-Mail harald.voigtlaender@durr.com
www.durr.com