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Agrikon paintshop goes electrostatic
Hungarian heavy machinery cabin manufacturer selects Graco electrostatic sprayers to increase efficiency in paintshop
Agrikon, based in Kiskunmajsa, Hungary is a manufacturer of cabins for construction and agricultural machinery. Its portfolio includes cabins for wheel loaders, excavators, road rollers, lifts, tractors, harvesters, and balers, as well as doors and sub-assemblies. Customers include multinational companies such as CLAAS, JLG, ZETOR, and Liebherr.
To meet the increasing quality demands of these customers, Agrikon was keen to improve the final quality of its surface painting processes. At the same time, in these challenging economic conditions and in a highly competitive market, the company was seeking to improve the efficiency of its painting processes in order to improve cost-effectiveness and reduce costs.
Cooperating with Paint Service Kft
For a number of years the Agrikon paintshop had been equipped with a two-component polyurethane mixing and spraying system. Unfortunately, due to its age, the system was frequently breaking down, leading to frustrating downtime and expensive repairs. Looking around for advice, Agrikon turned to Paint Service Kft, which has been distributing Graco products in Hungary since 2006. “Paint Service has a very good reputation on the Hungarian market, especially for 2K plastic and metal paint spraying solutions and Gelcoat applications,” explains Sandor Varga, Managing Director, Paint Service. “We run a large demonstration lab with all Graco products and a Fanuc robot for automation tests. We were happy to talk to Agrikon and see if we could solve their challenges.”
After visiting the Agrikon plant and carefully analyzing their specific requirements, Varga recommended the Graco ProMix 2KE Plural Component Mixing System. “This is a compact, entry-level proportioner that is available in pump and metered versions for all spray technologies. We suggested the pump version with a mobile trolley.”
The ProMix 2KE is designed for single-color, two-component, in-booth applications, and offers predefined tolerance limits that help to stay on ratio within 2%. Maintenance is quick and easy, and it comes with an easy-to-use, icon-driven LCD display. Agrikon started off with one ProMix 2KE, but were so delighted with it that they soon purchased a second unit. Two years later, they purchased another two ProMix 2KE units, as well as two ProMix M2K units. The M2K is a basic mechanical plural component mixing system that increases mix material accuracy and reduces material waste compared to hand mixing.
Electrostatic air-assisted spray guns
Most recently, Agrikon returned to Paint Service with another question. How might it be possible to reduce paint consumption while maintaining the same high-quality levels? “To meet this challenge we looked closely at the spray guns that Agrikon were using, and we recommended they change to Graco’s Pro XP manual booster air spray guns. These are designed for low-pressure spraying where they deliver a high-quality finish with excellent transfer efficiency.”
In addition, Pro XP spray guns are small and light so are easy to operate. They have a round spray option for a bell-shaped pattern, and a high conductivity version to handle low-resistivity material. They are available in 40, 60 and 85 kV models.
A trial was set up and Agrikon was delighted with the results. They purchased 12 Pro XP spray guns (and a further five ProMix 2KE units).
25% REDUCED PAINT CONSUMPTION
Today the Agrikon paint shop is set up with 10 ProMix 2KE units. Each one feeds one or two Pro XP electrostatic spray guns, which means that at any one time up to 16 spray guns are in operation.
“Agrikon is now totally prepared for the increasing orders that are coming our way. We have a fully up-to-date and streamlined paintshop, with reliable plural component mixing systems and top-quality electrostatic spray guns,“ says János Tóth, paint shop manager at Agrikon. ”We are delighted with Graco’s products. The final quality of the painted surface of our cabins is exceptionally high, and overall we are experiencing a 25% reduction in paint consumption.”
MORE INFORMATION
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