STEEL PAINTER is a revolutionary robotic paint solution for high mix structural steel fabrication. It automates the programming process and automatically generates custom-tailored robotic paint programs for every unique beam.
Autonomous Robotic Paint System
The brain in the system is the INROPA STEEL PAINTER simulation package that overlays and aligns imported 3D CAD model with 3D scanned profile of the steel profile, and then automatically generates paint program for the robots.
The paint strokes are targeted and follows along the natural lines of the steel profile; Just like an experienced painter would do. The conveyance speed can be calculated for optimal spray time and minimum gun off time while the part advanced downstream in front of the robot.
Key benefits:
- No-Programming required
- Uniform paint coverage and quality with targeted paint strokes
- Minimum touchup if any
- Real time robot program alignment via 3D profile scan of the hanging part for accurate and collision free painting
- Adjustable conveyance speed for optimal spray time and increased throughput
How Robots Paint Steel Profiles
The steel painting process is performed by two opposing robots, strategically offset to prevent overspray on each other. Each robot is equipped with either airless or conventional spray guns, which can be upgraded with electrostatic technology to enhance transfer efficiency and reduce paint consumption.
As the steel beams move through a compact paint booth—configured in either a cross-draft or down-draft layout—the robots apply paint uniformly across all surfaces.
The paint dosing system can operate as either a single-component or a plural-component on-demand mixing system, eliminating the need for premixing and avoiding issues with pot-life expiration. Optionally, a color changer can be integrated into the dosing system, allowing the robots to switch paint colors seamlessly between beams during production.
Key Benefits:
- Small footprint spray booth with steel beams up to 55’ long traveling through while robots are painting
- Fast color change over with optional multi color supply system
- On demand paint mixing system of plural component paint to eliminate labor intensive premixing of paint and reduce waste when cleaning equipment and flushing paint lines
- Increase transfer efficiency with electrostatic spray gun to lower paint usage and booth filter replacements
- External 7th axis to extend robot work envelop for larger parts
Optimized Handling and Workflow
The Power & Free conveyor system can handle structural steel profiles up to 12000 lbs. The conveyor can be customized to streamline your production flow by conveying steel profiles through multiple processes (blasting, painting, curing) and free up valuable labor by minimizing the number of loading/unloading operations.
Loading and unloading is made easy with integrated lift stations that can lower the load bar down to the steel profiles for hooking.
Multiple steel profiles steel profiles can be hung under each other on the same load bar which will increase density and throughput in the blast and paint process as well as minimize shopfloor usage for drying.
Key Benefits:
- Reduced handling operation by hanging steel profiles once for multiple processes
- Increase process capacity by hanging multiple steel profiles on one load bar
- Reduced shopfloor usage for drying with staggered load bars in accumulation zones
- Absorb inconsistent flow in loading (input) and unloading (output) of steel profiles with intermediate buffer zones