WAAK (Kuurne): automatic quick colour change booth with Wagner PXS and Flowsense

At WAAK in Kuurne we replaced the old booth in an existing powder coating line with an automatic quick colour change booth with a Wagner PXS powder centre and Flowsense. At the same time, the pretreatment tunnel was overhauled. The conversion took place around the 2024-2025 year-end, so that production stood still for as short a time as possible.

A quick colour change booth in an existing line

The booth is double-walled and built in white PVC: little powder adhesion and quick to clean. A blow-off system over the full length blows the powder on the floor towards extraction slots on both sides. This keeps the airflow around the workpiece to a minimum, which benefits transfer efficiency and an even powder distribution. During a colour change, the booth ends are closed off with panels and the guns are blown off automatically on the outside.

Wagner PXS with Flowsense

The PXS powder centre controls the entire application:

• Guns: eight automatic guns on two reciprocators with a horizontal slide, plus two manual guns for manual pre- and post-coating.
• Only spraying where parts are hanging: part recognition, height control and width control.
• Operation: the operator controls the line from the platform via an external touchscreen.
• Flowsense: measures and regulates the powder output in g/min for each gun separately and stores it in the recipe.

The result: a constant coating thickness, lower powder consumption and predictive maintenance of the nozzles.

WAAK sums it up itself: faster processes, a more even powder distribution and less powder, because the guns only target the places where parts are hanging.

Cyclone, filter and safety

A mono-cyclone of 14,400 m³/h next to the booth recovers the powder, with a sieve and a peristaltic pump that switches automatically between recovery and waste. The after-filter has twelve conductive Donaldson Ultra-Web cartridges and a 30 kW fan with continuous flow measurement. The ESTEE control cabinet runs on UNICoater, ESTEE’s own control and data platform. UNICoater controls extraction, filter and floor cleaning and processes the signals of the STS fire detection with extinguishing system.

Overhaul of the pretreatment tunnel

During the same shutdown we overhauled the existing polypropylene pretreatment tunnel: high-pressure cleaning, repairs to the polypropylene, new manifolds with rinse connections, 42 new spray pipes and new nozzles.