For Delta Light, the lighting manufacturer from Wevelgem, ESTEE built a complete powder coating line for aluminium parts in 2022. The line achieves Qualimarine quality on a compact floor area and runs from loading to unloading on the ESTEE automation platform.
At a glance
- Customer
- Delta Light
- Location
- Wevelgem, Belgium
- Year
- 2022
- Installation
- PP pretreatment tunnel with 6 spray chambers, drying oven and curing oven with heat recovery, manual booth with vertical extraction, semi-automatic monorail system, ESTEE automation platform
- Quality
- Qualimarine
- Max. product (L × W × H)
- 3,500 × 400 × 1,800 mm (pass-through up to 600 mm wide)
- Capacity
- 9 beams per hour, up to 1,000 kg per hour
Ten process steps in six spray chambers
The pretreatment tunnel is built entirely in polypropylene. In each spray chamber the beam moves back and forth, so that every part is sprayed thoroughly everywhere. Three chambers have an automatic tilting floor and therefore work with two baths. This fits ten process steps into six chambers: alkaline degreasing, double rinse, a separate acid pickling for extrusion profiles and for castings, another double rinse, rinsing with demineralised water and passivation.
A high-efficiency boiler heats the baths via plate heat exchangers. The demineralised water comes from a closed-circuit demineralisation plant with mobile units that are regenerated off site: low water consumption and no on-site regeneration. A polypropylene drip tray under the entire tunnel and two 15 m³ buffer tanks collect the wastewater.
Ovens with heat recovery
After the tunnel, the beams pass through a direct-fired drying oven. The curing oven is an indirect-fired chamber oven with a cassette for five beams.
The hot flue gases from the curing oven are routed to the drying oven after the heat exchanger. This residual heat lowers the gas consumption of the drying oven.
Manual booth with vertical extraction
In the ESTEE manual booth, the vertical extraction is evenly distributed over the entire floor, in accordance with the standard NBN EN 16985. The powder coater can work with the same settings everywhere, which increases comfort and reduces powder consumption. The booth has a Donaldson filter, an STS fire detection system with extinguishing system and Wagner hand equipment.
The ESTEE automation platform
The entire line runs on ESTEE's unique automation platform, with one central operating screen for the tunnel, ovens, booth and monorail. At the loading position the operator scans a barcode and thereby passes on the beam's recipe. The screen of the manual booth shows the coater all the information, such as the powder needed for each beam. Via a secured VPN connection, ESTEE can monitor the installation remotely.
Semi-automatic monorail system
Transport through the pretreatment tunnel, the drying oven and the manual booth is automatic. Loading into the curing oven uses an automated cassette system: after the set curing time the doors open and the cassette comes out by itself. Drop sections at the loading and unloading stations bring the beams to working height.
More about our lines for aluminium.
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