Yaskawa Motoman

Webinar: Safely Using Robots in Flammable Environments

(Or: How to Stay Off the Evening News)

Learn how high-performance robotic automation can help prevent potential fires in flammable environments.
Webinar Presented December 2

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Industrial Paint Robots

Yaskawa Motoman offers manufacturers a wide range of robotic painting products and technology. Our flexible, high-performance paint robots increase finishing quality, consistency and throughput, while dramatically lowering operating costs and decreasing wasted material.

Robotic Painting Process

Painting and coating typically consists of multiple operations before and after the actual coating process. While operations vary with the application, we have listed several of the most common paint-line subprocesses below:

Part Fabrication

Before the part is painted, it is often fabricated in another area of the plant or in a separate plant. Our robots are used for a wide range of fabrication operations, including arc welding, spot welding, forming or bending and machining or grinding.

Part Preparation

Parts nearly always require some preparation. This includes finishing the part in a sanding, buffing or polishing process. Parts often need to be cleaned or etched prior to painting. Our application-specific industrial robots are used extensively in all of these operations.

Part Presentation

Presenting parts to robots varies widely from application to application. For industrial paint operations, parts are typically presented in a batch tote, bin or on a flat conveyor. The parts must then be located and placed onto a rack or an overhead conveyor for presentation to the coating equipment.

Our MotoSight™ robotic vision products can help locate the parts so that the robot can pick them up precisely and consistently.

Paint Performance Testing

Manufacturers looking to establish more realistic outcomes for painting or coating, may choose to evaluate paint performance on test panels or speed shapes via robotic automation. The use of robots provides greater flexibility and better consistency over 2-axis spray machines, as well as providing easy-to-use operation.

Multi-Step Coating Process

The actual paint line is often a multi-step process. Our robots and systems support the following coating processes:

Single component
Two component
Water base
Electrostatic spray
Powder coat
Wax spray
Undercoating and sound deadener
Adhesives and sealants

Application of the paint or material varies widely. Below is a list of the applicator types supported by our products:

Standard spray atomizers, airless and air-assisted airless
High Volume Low Pressure (HVLP)
Electrostatic
Bell guns (rotary atomizers)
Powder applicators
Swirl gun

Curing

After the coating is applied, it must be cured. This is normally done over time by applying heat or using ultraviolet lamps. The actual curing process is most often done with parts on the same rack or conveyor, just downstream from the coating process.

Part Handling

After the coating is cured, parts can be removed from the rack or conveyor. We have a broad range of material handling robots that can move the parts to the next process.

Vision Inspection

Shipping faulty or defective products can be devastating to a business. Machine vision has a long history in part inspection, ensuring consistent and predictable quality. Whether it’s gauging a part, detecting presence of a feature or error proofing, our MotoSight products have all the necessary inspection and data analysis tools for part inspection.