Heavy truck manufacturers support custom fleet and carrier colors and allow a buyer to select from the entire palette of available colors from the paint supplier. In addition, many trucks are multi-tone and can have up to 3 custom colors per truck. Paint for the trucks are formulated into 5 or six gallon pails and then delivered to the paint booth(s) where they are loaded into the robots for processing.

Engineering Discovery at customer site:

Reliability. Unpainted trucks cannot be stored outside and there is little to no room to store these large vehicles inside. Design of the paint formulation system should be robust, easily maintained and use materials and parts which are industrial strength.
System must be Class 1 / Division 1 compatible for installation due to this being solvent borne materials.
Accurate and repeatable. Painted vehicles must match color “standards” ordered by their customers. Mismatched colors are expensive to fix, typically requiring sanding and a total repaint.
Fast. Typically 70 to 120pails of custom color are required for daily production. (300 to 700 gals).
System must interface directly with paint suppliers’ formula database.

Our Solution:
The Volumetrix

The Volumetrix system was comprised of a 40 Nozzle Dispense station positioned above a high resolution scale. Materials are supplied to the Dispense station by Stainless Steel canister wings which have ingredient wells (of various capacities), paddle agitators and electrically driven positive displacement pumps of various sizes. High-runner ingredients (binders, solvents and base colors) are supplied from 200 gallon Stainless Steel tanks directly to the Volumetrix pumps.

Benefits:

Fast. The Volumetrix is capable of dispensing formulas at 30 secs. per gallon.
4 Full time paint mixer positions were eliminated.
Confidence in the Volumetrix has eliminated the need for spray out “color checks”.
All stainless steel construction. Controls are Allen-Bradley plc based for maximum reliability.
Automatic calibration. Full Sql Server based reporting system.
Directly interfaces to paint suppliers’ formula database.
Covers can be removed without tools. Easy maintenance. No purged or gasketed enclosures.