Carmetal (FR): fully automatic powder coating line with multi-axis robot

At Carmetal in Andancette, south of Lyon, ESTEE built an entirely new powder coating line. The line runs fully automatically: only the hanging of the parts is still done by hand. Finished parts are unloaded automatically onto AGVs, which take them to the next production hall.

Multi-axis robot in a tailor-made booth

The powder booth is built in polypropylene, with vertical extraction and a grid floor above an extraction floor with 30 hoppers. In the booth stands a multi-axis robot with Wagner gun technology, running its own program for each product type. A rotation unit in the axis of the booth turns each part in front of the robot, so that all sides are coated evenly. Automatic sliding doors close off the booth entrance and exit. Manual Wagner guns are there only as a backup, in case of a problem with the robot.

An oven that keeps the heat in

The gas-fired U-shaped oven is built according to the ESTEE oven concept, which keeps energy losses to an absolute minimum. At the entrance and exit there is an automatic 5.4 m airlock with its own air circulation, and automatic transit doors close off the oven every time. You can read more about the ESTEE oven concept with airlocks in our article on the double air lock at the curing oven.

Power & Free with rotating load bars

More than 600 meters of Power & Free continuously carries 150 load bars through the line. Each load bar has a rotation mechanism with indexing and its own barcode. Two lifting stations bring the parts to working height for loading and unloading. Beneath the conveyor lies a 440 m² walkway that protects against falling parts and makes maintenance easy to reach.

Automation with UNICoater

The entire line runs on Siemens S7-1500 controllers with Siemens Unified Comfort panels, interconnected via Profinet and Ethernet. On top sits UNICoater, ESTEE’s own control and data platform. For a project of this complexity that was a necessity: UNICoater makes the booth, robot, oven and conveyor work together and collects the line’s energy and consumption data. A wireless tablet serves as an additional operating screen, and via a secure VPN connection we can provide remote support.

The line was ordered in the summer of 2023 and has been in production since September 2024.