ABB unmasks the future of customized automotive painting with PixelPaint

Millennials are driving desire for better individualization, increasing the require for custom-made automobile paint techniques, using possibly a next colour, a distinctive paint complete this sort of as matte, or a unique style and design.

Formerly, making use of a two-tone or tailored design onto bodywork was a time and labour-intense method that re-quired the car or truck to be place by the portray line two times, after for the initial layer and then, after the regions had been masked, once more for the next colour. Usually, masking the bodywork demanded close to 10 to 20 operators for every change, with two operators also wanted to de-mask it soon after the 2nd color experienced been applied.

With only 70 to 80 p.c of the paint remaining utilized to the bodywork surface, substantial portions of paint are squandered, increasing charges as a result of recycling and owning to buy more paint.

ABB’s progressive PixelPaint solution incorporates a substantial portray inkjet head, dosing command offer and effortless to use RobotStudio® programming software program for two tone and attractive painting purposes.

“In today’s fiercely aggressive automotive production marketplace, car producers will need answers that can help them to increase their overall flexibility, effectiveness and expense competitiveness even though providing a superior-top quality paint finish, like individualized choices to meet the rising need for non-conventional and tailored layouts,” stated Michael Larsson, Controlling Director Automotive OEM for ABB Robotics. “With PixelPaint, 100 per cent of the paint is applied to the bodywork area, so there’s no overspray. Not only does this cut down working fees and strengthen environmental general performance by guaranteeing that no paint is misplaced, PixelPaint also gets rid of the system of masking and de-masking just about every car, helping to decrease bottlenecks in automotive paint retailers.”

PixelPaint is out there as a mobile utilizing two ABB IRB 5500 robots. The non-overspray technologies prints paint right on to a concentrate on place employing the printing nozzle head rather of spraying with a regular atomizer, ensuing in 100 p.c transfer effectiveness.

With no need to have for masking or demasking, a personalized paint job can be carried out in a solitary go, decreasing cycle periods by all around 50 %.

ABB’s non-overspray PixelPaint remedy was identified as a floor-breaking innovation with a “Technology” award at the SURCAR annual meeting in Cannes in June 2019. SURCAR is a forum for the global car human body ending local community.

In addition to robots and application-certain devices, ABB provides standardized generation cells for the auto-motive marketplace, as very well as the layout, preparing and implementation of comprehensive creation traces. The ABB Ability™ system allows buyers to advantage from a variety of electronic solutions this kind of as process optimization, and predictive maintenance.