In coating industry, there’re various ways of paint application and each solution has its unique advantages. In order to choose a suitable method, we need to check carefully on multiple specifications such as object design, dimensions and production requirements etc. In this article we will compare two of the most popular solutions – fixed gun spraying on chain spindle system and robotic spraying machine. We will start from technical review, ease of use and production efficiency and give our followers an indepth guidance.
Fixed gun spraying brief review
As the name says, spray gun is fixed in paint booth. In production, we need to adjust spray gun angles and positions so paint can by sprayed on objects properly. Products are loaded on spindles by chain conveyor system. When passing through the paint booth area, rotary unit will make each spinde rotating in order to have each piece properly painted. After spraying, objects moves forward on chain conveyor and stay few minutes for “leveling” then enter into drying chamber.
The main advantage of fixed gun spraying is its full automatic conveyor system. Each stage is connected together by chain conveyor so no transfer required, efficiency is greatly improved comparing to other solutions.
Robotic Spraying Review
Robotic spray painting is advanced painting solution which focus on high quality finishing. Robotic painting requires programming in advance over different products. It can be a stand alone painting station or setup together with conveyor painting line system.
Technique comparison
Fixed gun spray painting is a full system from loading to final finished treatment, the general technical properties are the same or very similar on different lines. The main challenge is the conveyor design based allocated space. A well structured conveyor system will make full use of each area and each station can be properly connected without any waste. Other components like oven chamber and protection cover etc all depends the actual production experience.
Robotic painting is basically a spraying station powered by robotic painting machine or multi axis robot. While fixed gun spraying is backened by multiple spray guns by angle adjusting, robot uses single or double guns by motion control. Under this setup, objects are always painted by the same gun, thus the paint layer thickness is more even on each area and no color difference issue.
Ease of use
Fixed gun spraying system is powered by lots of physical control boxes beside the general control system. For example inside paint booth, each spray gun has dedicated control valves and gauges. Before put into production mode, operator needs to adjust each spray gun properly. In order to use the line properly, we will need a professional operator with plenty of live experience.
Robotic painting system is mostly about programming control on touch screen, no need to adjust physical valves by hand. Once the operator learnt how to operate machine, the start/stop is just a single click on screen. So generally speaking, the operation of a robotic painting station is easier than fixed gun spraying system.
Production efficiency
The two systems are targeted to different areas so it’s hard to compare directly. Fixed gun spraying is mainly for small size products finishing, for some small objects we can load multiple pieces on single fixture such as phone case. The result is production efficiency is pretty high comparing to manual operation, especially when the conveyor speed is set very big value. Robotic painting is used more on relatively big size objects such as laptop panel, machine components and some complex shape parts. Because of this, the time of spraying on such pieces will be more, thus output quantity is less than fixed gun painting.
From above explanation, we know that robotic painting be able to handle almost all kinds product spraying requirement but fixed gun is only for small and mostly light weight objects. Fixed gun is suggested when you have huge capacity requirement because it’s fast and no need various transfer from different treatment stations. Robotic painting is a flexible option which can be operated stand alone and can be also used to replace fixed gun in paint booth as long as required. It’s an advanced setup.
If you have limited space and capacity requirement is not very high, robotic option is the right choice.
