RU2823697C1 - Universal painting unit - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: various technological processes.

SUBSTANCE: invention can be used for painting vehicle bodies. Painting unit comprises at least one painting chamber, a magazine containing paint cartridges, and a device for automatic transportation of cartridges from the magazine to feeding stations. Painting chamber contains a painting device intended for application of paint on objects placed in the chamber. Feeding stations are made with provision of ink supply from cartridges to painting device. Automatic transfer device is pneumatic and comprises launching station for sending cartridges from magazine, receiving station for receiving cartridges and channels for transportation of cartridges by air flow. Receiving station has an outlet for quick withdrawal of the empty cartridge from the installation. Also disclosed is a method of supplying paint to painting devices.

EFFECT: invention provides fast and efficient control of paints and internal cleaning of the installation.

12 cl, 2 dwg

Description

This invention relates to an innovative painting installation.

In the prior art, there are painting installations with painting chambers, in which painting devices ensure the application of paint to the surfaces of objects to be painted, such as vehicle bodies. In automated installations, painting devices contain painting devices or guns that are moved by appropriately programmed robotic manipulators, while in the case of touch-up painting or small-scale production, a human operator may also be required to ensure manual control of a special hand-held paint spray gun.

In installations of a certain size, the paint spraying unit of a booth (or several booths) is connected to a special centralized paint source, often called a "color center". As a rule, this "color center", containing large tanks of paint, is located away from the booths (for example, also with the possibility of simultaneously serving several booths) and is connected to the paint spraying unit by means of long paint supply channels.

The first problem with such installations is the need to prevent drying out or changing the density of the paint inside the said long feed channels, in particular due to periods of plant downtime (e.g. to allow for maintenance of the chambers).

In addition, if the colour of the applied paint changes, it is necessary to ensure that no traces of the previous paint remain in the entire installation.

Thus, in known painting installations, automatic or semi-automatic cleaning installations have been proposed, which carry out cleaning of the entire paint distribution system and the painting device on command. These cleaning installations are activated, for example, when a relatively long stop of the painting installation is planned and/or before the start of a painting cycle with a different color.

As a rule, known cleaning agents carry out the removal of any paint remaining in the installation and the circulation of a suitable cleaning liquid, which is directed from the color center through all paint supply channels and then discharged through the painting device in the booth, ensuring its spraying into special recovery containers. Obviously, this leads to the use of a large amount of cleaning liquid, which after use must be disposed of as special waste, both because it contains the removed paint and because it is often a chemical solvent harmful to the environment. Thus, there are relatively high costs associated with consumables and the operation of the installation.

In addition, at the end of the cleaning cycle, it is necessary to ensure that there are no traces of cleaning fluid left in the installation that could change the paint at the beginning of a new painting cycle. Therefore, an additional flush of the installation must be carried out, which is usually carried out by introducing a first quantity of paint that must be dosed "once" to remove any traces of cleaning fluid. This leads to additional costs associated with consumables and disposal operations.

In any case, the operations of cleaning and restoring the functionality of the installation with new paint require a fairly long period of downtime for the installation.

In addition, the minimum amount of paint of a certain color that can be processed by the installation is determined by the amount of paint needed to fill the entire installation. This amount can sometimes be excessive and can lead to a quantity of waste paint at the end of painting that is not insignificant. In addition, the paint tanks of the known type of color center generally have a capacity of at least 20-25 liters and are therefore heavy and difficult to handle.

In order to try to reduce the downtime and the amount of consumable material (both paint and cleaning fluid) used in painting installations, the prior art has proposed guiding an insert along the installation, which moves along the pipes and divides the fluids passing through the pipes of the installation into parts. Thus, a part with paint can be followed by a part with cleaning fluid, and then another part with paint, with the separation of the different parts provided by the insert located between them.

This reduces the amount of cleaning fluid and paint with a given color and partially eliminates the above-mentioned problems, but does not eliminate them completely. In addition, there is a need to control the introduction of inserts into pipes and their removal from pipes and to ensure hydraulic separation between the various parts. Contaminated inserts, in turn, must be cleaned and/or disposed of.

The prior art also proposed the use of paint containers that are delivered from a paint warehouse and inserted into painting stations or painting robots, and then returned and refilled. One of the conveyor devices may be, for example, a pneumatic device that guides the containers through channels.

However, the control of capacities in known installations is quite complex.

Patent document EP 1 566 221 discloses a coating robot equipped with a replaceable cartridge in which paint is stored.

Patent document WO 97/34707 discloses an installation comprising a rotating magazine for a set of replaceable containers for a coating machine, which are filled at a location separate from said coating machine, removed from the magazine at an unloading point and fed to the coating machine, and after use returned to the magazine again.

Patent document EP 0895485 discloses an installation for applying a coating to objects, in which a rack for sorting and storing cartridges contains a set of cartridges. The conveyor means consists of a ring-shaped tubular device in which full cartridges are fed to a docking station and an application means and back, so that a circular contour must be provided for the cartridges.

The main objective of the present invention is to eliminate the above-mentioned problems of the prior art by creating a universal painting installation with faster and more efficient paint management and internal cleaning of the installation.

Taking this objective into account, according to the invention, the idea arose of creating a cleaning installation containing at least one painting chamber, which contains a painting device intended for applying paint to objects placed in said chamber, and characterized in that it contains a magazine containing cartridges with paint, and a device for automatically transporting cartridges from the storage to at least one receiving station near the chamber and feeding stations, which are designed to ensure the removal of paint from the cartridges and its supply to the painting device in the chamber.

Also according to the invention, the idea that has arisen consists in creating a method for feeding paint to painting devices in painting chambers, which includes the stages of preparing cartridges with paint, feeding these cartridges into a magazine and using a device for automatically transporting cartridges from the magazine to the chambers with the provision of feeding cartridges to be used in the painting devices of the chambers to a location near said chambers.

The transport device may preferably be a pneumatic type device.

The store may preferably be an automatic type store.

Additionally, the magazine may be provided with additional cartridges containing cleaning fluid for delivery as an alternative to the paint cartridges and for use in cleaning the elements of the paint sprayer that have been in contact with the paint.

As clearly described below, ink cartridges are considered "consumable" items that are removed from the machine after use.

In order to more clearly illustrate the innovative principles of the present invention and its advantages over the known state of the art, examples of embodiments in which these principles are used are described below using the attached drawings.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 shows a schematic view of a first installation according to the invention,

Fig. 2 shows a schematic view of another installation according to the invention.

With reference to the drawings, Fig. 1 shows a paint booth according to the invention, designated as a whole by the reference number 10.

This installation 10 comprises at least one painting booth 11, in which one or more painting devices 12 for painting objects 13, such as vehicle bodies or parts thereof, are located, which are fed into the booth preferably by means of a sequential transport line 14 (for example a suitable and known sequential chain, roller or similar conveyor). The painting devices 12 can be manual devices with paint application means (for example paint spray guns) or, for example, can comprise one or more painting robots 12a (preferably in the form of anthropomorphic manipulators), at the end of which a suitable paint application means 12b (for example a suitable paint spray gun) is located. Below, for simplicity, the paint application means (both manual and automatically controlled type) are designated by the term "paint spray gun", however, it should be understood that this term can designate any known paint application means, as should be obvious to a person skilled in the art.

The chamber 11 preferably has a grating floor 15 for allowing a through flow of excess spray (namely, sprayed paint in the chamber that has not been applied to the object being painted), which is preferably transported by means of an air flow introduced through the ceiling of the chamber via an inlet duct 16 and exiting through the grating floor with the provision of directing the air with excess spray into a known scrubber device 17 for removing excess spray (for example, using filters, water jets or other means well known in the industry), which separates the excess spray from the air flow. Then, the air cleaned from the excess spray leaves the scrubber device 17, for example, through one or more channels 18, after which it enters the environment and/or is directed back into the chamber through the inlet duct 16. The movement of the air flow is provided by special fans (not shown).

This design of the chamber is well known to those skilled in the art and is therefore not shown or described in more detail.

The installation 10 contains an automatic color magazine 19, into special sockets of which color cartridges 20 are placed, ensuring their selection and release on command. The magazine can be a magazine of a known type for receiving, selecting and releasing objects on command.

Next to the magazine or inside it, a launch station 22 of a device 23 for automatically transporting cartridges from the launch station to at least one receiving station 33 is located. The magazine can, for example, release and automatically insert into the launch station a selected cartridge 20. For example, the magazine can contain a device 21 for selecting and gripping a cartridge from the cartridges located in the magazine and insert it directly into the launch station 22 of the device 23 for automatically transporting cartridges in the direction of the chamber 11 to a suitable receiving station 33.

The device for automatically transporting paint cartridges can preferably be designed as a pneumatic transport device, wherein each cartridge is transported along said device (formed by suitable channels) using a suitable air flow.

The chamber 11 contains at least one feeding station 24 associated with it, which feeds paint from the cartridge into the painting device 12 located in the chamber. In the automatic device, the cartridge transported from the magazine to the receiving station 33 of the automatic transport device 33 can be directly introduced from the receiving station 33 into the feeding station 24.

In this case, the station 24 also comprises or preferably forms a receiving station 33 of the transport device and is designed to receive a cartridge sent from the store via the transport device and to automatically connect it to the corresponding painting device 12 for directing the flow of paint extracted from the cartridge to it.

Preferably, each paint spray gun and/or each painting robot can be associated with a corresponding receiving station 33 and/or supply station 24.

The supply station 24 can be located near the painting station, and the supply of paint from the cartridge located therein to the paint spray gun can be ensured by a short channel 25. For example, the supply station 24 can be located near the robot 12a or at its base, so that the mass that the robot must move remains small in any case.

Alternatively, the station may be located closer to the spray gun and, therefore, the channel 25 may be shorter. If necessary, the channel 25 may be omitted and the cartridge may be delivered and inserted into the spray gun, which together with the cartridge thus also forms a receiving station 33 for the cartridge and a paint supply station 24.

In any case, a controlled device for cleaning the paint on the section connecting the cartridge and the gun can be implemented or connected to the supply station 24. In this controlled device, for example, a controlled circulation of a suitable cleaning liquid can be used. The amount of cleaning liquid can be kept small, since the elements of the installation that come into contact with the paint are few in number and have small dimensions.

It can also advantageously be provided that cartridges containing cleaning liquid are introduced into the automatic magazine in addition to the paint cartridges. In this way, when cleaning is required, a cartridge containing cleaning liquid can be sent to the station instead of a paint cartridge, so that the cleaning liquid can circulate in the same place where the paint was initially circulated. As a result, a separate circuit for controlling the cleaning liquid can be eliminated and the cleaning system simplified. In fact, the painting device only needs to release the cleaning liquid into a special area of the chamber (for example, into a recovery container, which is not shown) in the same way as when using paint.

The transport device 23 for cartridges may comprise corresponding routing units 26 for sending, on command, cartridges 20 from the sending station 22 in the store to the selected receiving station 33 of the chamber 11.

Preferably, a first channel 27 may be provided which leads from the sending station 22 to a routing unit 28 which directs the cartridges into channels 28, each of which is directed to a receiving station 33. Several routing units may be provided for further directing the cartridges to several chambers and/or painting devices in the chambers.

In the case of pneumatic transport, the sending station 22 can create a proper air flow for pushing the cartridges through the channels of the device, and the routing unit 26 can contain a mobile selector that, upon command, connects the inlet channel 27 alternately with the desired outlet channel 28, so that the cartridge that has arrived at the routing unit can be easily inserted into the desired channel 28 and, thus, can continue moving to the selected receiving station 33.

To facilitate the pneumatic movement of the cartridges, the cartridges 20 may have a transverse diameter that is slightly smaller than the internal diameter of the channels of the transport device 23, and, alternatively, may also comprise circumferential sealing rings near their ends, as is generally known for the case of pneumatic postal devices.

If necessary, the cartridges 20 may also have rounded edges at the front and rear ends. The rear end of the cartridges may have a substantially flat surface to provide better pneumatic traction. The front end may have a rounded surface to facilitate the sliding movement of the cartridge along the channels, including in the case of relatively sharp bends in the trajectory of movement.

If necessary, in addition to the pneumatic traction, a counter-vacuum force can also be provided, which ensures the suction of the cartridges towards their destination.

The cartridges may contain a connecting valve (e.g. at their front end) for automatic connection to the paint supply circuit present at station 24.

Alternatively, the cartridges 20 may have a zone capable of being perforated, and the circuit present at the station 24 for feeding paint to the painting devices 12 may comprise a device for perforating the cartridge, providing for the introduction of a channel for removing paint through this zone.

The cartridge may, for example, be in the form of a can and have a wall that is sufficiently weak to be perforated by means of an extraction channel made, for example, with a suitable pointed shape.

The perforated area may also be made of a material different from the rest of the cartridge. For example, this area may be made using a membrane of elastomeric material that is easier to perforate and which, if necessary, can also provide a hydraulic seal after the channel is removed from the cartridge to prevent any residual paint that may remain in the cartridge from spreading outward.

Preferably, the stations 24 can also provide for the discharge of an empty cartridge, for example, via a chute 29, which leads into a collecting container 30. In this way, the rapid removal of used cartridges from the installation for their disposal is ensured.

The control of the installation is preferably carried out by means of a control device 31, which is, for example, implemented using a per se known, suitably programmed electronic controller and which may also comprise one or more terminals 32 for displaying information about the installation and for entering any commands by the operator.

The control device 31 can be, for example, programmed to send to the required painting device (for example, to a specific robot) a cartridge containing the required color from among the colors available in the cartridges located in the store, with a determination also that the cartridge is empty, in order to send another cartridge of the same color or a different color if necessary.

In the case of a color change, the control device can also control the operation of a cleaning device to eliminate traces of the previous color before using the color of the new cartridge. In the case where cleaning cartridges are used, as indicated above, the control device can perform cleaning in a very simple way by removing the cleaning cartridge from the magazine before the cartridge with the new color and by performing aspiration and release of cleaning liquid in the area where the paint was previously circulating.

Fig. 2 shows a simplified embodiment of the installation according to the invention. Elements similar to those shown in Fig. 1 are designated in Fig. 2 using the same numbering as in Fig. 1, and, unless otherwise indicated below, reference may be made with respect to these parts to the description given above.

In general, the installation 10 according to Fig. 2 always contains at least one painting chamber 11, containing one or more automatic or manual painting devices 12 for painting objects 13, for example bodies of motor vehicles or parts thereof, which are fed into the chamber preferably by means of a sequential transport line 14. The chamber can have a grating floor 15 and contain a device 16, 17, 18 for circulating and filtering air for removing excess sprayed substance. The chambers contain stations 24 for feeding paint from cartridges inserted into them to the painting agents in the chamber.

The installation contains a color magazine 119, inside which color cartridges 20 are stored. Near the magazine, a launch station 22 of an automatic transport device 23 is located, which ensures the transportation of cartridges to receiving stations 33 to ensure the possibility of their transfer and insertion into the corresponding feeding station 24.

In the variant of the installation shown in Fig. 2, the transfer of cartridges from the magazine 119 to the launch station can be carried out manually by the operator, who removes the cartridge from the magazine and inserts it into the launch station. The selection of the cartridge can be, for example, indicated to the operator by the control device 31 via the terminal 32.

Similarly, the transfer of cartridges from the receiving station 33 to the feeding station 24 can be performed manually by an operator who removes a cartridge that has arrived at the station 33 and inserts it into the feeding station 24.

Thanks to the described installation, as soon as the cartridge in the supply station is empty, a new cartridge can be automatically requested in the chamber by the control device or the operator. The operator at the magazine can extract from it a cartridge 20 containing a suitable paint, insert it into the starting station 22 and send it by means of an automatic transport device 23 to the corresponding receiving station 33, from where it can be extracted by the operator and inserted into the supply station of the painting device waiting for paint, after removing the empty cartridge. All this can be done quickly and easily.

At this stage, it is clear how the objectives of the invention have been achieved. Thanks to the device according to the invention, it is easy to obtain a painting installation that can change colors very quickly, as well as perform short operations of painting with a certain color and then switching to a new color without losing material. For example, the cartridges can be small in size (also a volume of only 0.1-2 liters), and if a larger capacity is required for painting over a longer period of time with the same color, then it is sufficient to successively call up the cartridges containing paint of the same color.

Cartridges can be made from inexpensive recyclable materials and can be disposable or refillable cartridges. For example, cartridges can be made from cardboard, aluminum, plastic, etc.

As is clear from the above description, the cartridges are used essentially as "consumables" that are sent to the paint machine from a warehouse and then, once the paint is used up, they are immediately discarded as essentially "disposable" items.

The magazine - both automatic and manual - can be easily filled manually by the operator, also due to the low weight that individual cartridges can have.

It is obvious that the above description of embodiments in which the innovative principles of the present invention are used is given as an example of these principles and therefore should not be considered as limiting the claimed scope of legal protection.

For example, depending on the requirements, feeding from several magazines to several chambers can be provided, or several magazines can be used to feed cartridges to one chamber or a group of chambers. Obviously, the magazine can be of any required size and accommodate any number of cartridges.

The paints used can be of different types and applied to the object to be painted in different ways. For example, paints can be in powder or liquid form and can be applied by guns using pressure spray nozzles, electrostatic methods, etc.

Thanks to the invention, one and the same magazine can also contain cartridges with paints of another type along with any suitable corresponding different cleaning liquids, and depending on the requirements, the installation can use different paints and liquids in any case quickly and efficiently.

The painting devices in the booths may differ from those shown in the drawings. For example, the paint spray guns in the booths may be moved by devices other than those shown in the drawings. For example, robots without anthropomorphic manipulators may be used, or the guns may simply be manually controlled by operators. It is also possible to make separate - automatic or manual - magazines for paint cartridges and for cartridges with cleaning fluids.

Finally, the elements described for the embodiment shown in Fig. 1 can also be used for the embodiment shown in Fig. 2. For example, in Fig. 2, instead of the manual magazine 119, an automatic magazine 19 can be used for automatically feeding cartridges directly to the launch station 22 or to an operator who must transfer them to the launch station 22. In the installation according to Fig. 1, a receiving station 33 and a feeding station 24 can also be used, which are separate, with an operator who transfers cartridges from one station to another, as shown in Fig. 2.

Claims (12)

1. A painting unit (10) comprising at least one painting chamber (11) which comprises a painting device (12) intended for applying paint to objects (13) placed in the chamber, and a magazine (19, 119) containing cartridges (20) with paint, and a device (23) for automatically transporting the cartridges from the magazine (19, 119) to feeding stations (24) which are designed to provide paint supply from the cartridges (20) to the painting device (12) in the chamber (11), characterized in that the feeding stations (24) provide for the ejection of an empty cartridge as a disposable element, said automatic transport device (23) is a pneumatic transport device comprising channels, wherein the cartridges are pushed through the channels by an air flow, a launch station (22) for sending the cartridges from the magazine (19, 119) through the channels and at least one receiving station (33) for receiving cartridges from the channels, which is located next to the chamber (11), and the receiving station (33) contains an outlet for ejecting the empty cartridge into a collector container for its rapid removal from the said installation for disposal after use. 2. A painting unit according to item 1, characterized in that the magazine is an automatic magazine (19). 3. A painting unit according to item 2, characterized in that the automatic magazine (19) is designed to provide for the introduction of cartridges (20) directly into the launch station (22) of the automatic transport device (23). 4. A painting installation according to item 1, characterized in that the receiving station (33) is designed to provide for the introduction of cartridges (20) directly into the feeding station (24). 5. A painting installation according to claim 1, characterized in that the feeding stations (24) form or contain the said receiving station (33). 6. A painting installation according to claim 1, characterized in that the painting devices (12) contain means (12b) for application, connected to the supply station (24) by a channel (25) for paint. 7. A painting installation according to claim 6, characterized in that the means (12b) for application are designed with the possibility of their movement using robotic manipulators (12a), each of which is connected to its own receiving station (33). 8. A painting unit according to claim 1, characterized in that the automatic transport device (23) comprises at least one routing unit (26) located between at least one launch station (22) and a set of receiving stations (33) for sequentially receiving cartridges (20) arriving from the store (19, 119) and directing them on command to a selected receiving station (33) from the specified set of receiving stations of the transport device. 9. The painting unit according to item 1, characterized in that the magazine (19, 119) is also intended to accommodate additional cartridges (20) with cleaning liquid, in addition to the cartridges (20) with paint, and such additional cartridges (20) are intended to supply cleaning liquid to the painting device (12) instead of paint. 10. A method for feeding paint to painting devices (12) in painting chambers (11), comprising the stages of preparing cartridges (20) with paint, feeding said cartridges into a magazine (19, 119) and using a pneumatic transport device (23) for automatically transporting cartridges from the magazine (19, 119) to the chambers (11) through channels by an air flow, ensuring the feeding of cartridges to be used in the painting device (12) of the chambers to a location near the chambers (11), wherein the cartridges are ejected from said painting device as disposable elements through an outlet opening leading into a collector container (30), so that used cartridges are removed from said installation for their disposal. 11. The method according to claim 10, in which cartridges (20) with cleaning liquid are additionally placed in the magazine (19, 119) to ensure that they are sent on command as an alternative to cartridges (20) with paint and their use for cleaning elements of the painting device (12). 12. The method according to claim 10, characterized in that the magazine is an automatic magazine (19) that provides the supply of cartridges (20) directly to the automatic transport device (23).