Beginner’s Guide to Powder Coating Equipment
Beginner's Guide to Powder Coating Equipment
If you want to get into powder coating but aren't sure where to start, our Beginner's Guide to Powder Coating Equipment is designed to help anyone learn about the powder coating business. Whether you're just curious about professional powder coating or you're ready to install your first coating line, this brief overview will provide you with the basic information you need to get started.
What is powder coating?
Powder coating is a multi-step finishing process. In the first step, the product (usually a metal part) is cleaned and prepared for coating. Next, coat it with a fine powder. The powder covers the surface of the part. In the final step, the parts are moved into the curing oven. The product is then heated in an oven, causing the powder to melt and flow into a uniform coating that adheres to the part. Once the molten powder cools and hardens, it forms a very durable and attractive coating around the product.
What type of equipment is required for a powder coating system?
To do professional-quality powder coating, you must have three different types of powder coating equipment:
Pre-treatment (cleaning your product before powder coating)
Application (spray powder onto product)
Curing (powder solidifies into a durable surface)
Powder coating pretreatment
For the powder coating process to work best, your product needs to be clean and free of dust, debris, oil, rust, old paint or finishing materials. Anything left on the product before application will affect the adhesion and durability of the powder. This is where preprocessing comes in.
Pre-treatment equipment is used before your product is powder coated and is designed to ensure your product is as clean as possible before it is powder coated. (For more information on pretreatment, start with our Pretreatment Primer.)
If the product you want to powder coat has a lot of debris (rust, laser scale, existing paint), then you may need a sandblasting booth. A sandblasting chamber is an enclosure where you use compressed air to push abrasive to the surface of the part. Depending on the situation, you will typically use appropriate blasting media (grit) or steel shot to remove all unwanted debris from the part until the part has a clean metal surface ready for powder coating. Sandblasting rooms are especially useful for job shops that work with non-virgin raw materials, such as steel plate or tubing with oxidation or welding residues.
If oil, solvent or chemical residues cover any part of the product surface, you need to consider a cleaning station. A wash station is where parts are sprayed with detergents and/or chemical pre-treatment agents (such as ferric phosphate). It is common to use hot water or steam to clean parts and then chemically treat the parts. Cleaning stations can help you increase powder adhesion and improve surface quality, even if the part has been blasted. Some cleaning stations require you to apply the chemical manually using a spray wand. Other cleaning machines are automated, with parts moving through cleaning, rinsing and preparation stages on a conveyor belt.
In some operations, pretreatment requires the use of a drying oven. This is usually a device similar to a curing oven, but heats the parts that have just been cleaned to evaporate any water or chemicals still on them. This step also helps the part reach the optimal temperature for powder application.
Pretreatment equipment can be very useful to your operation and can greatly improve the quality of your work, but powder coating doesn't always require a sophisticated system. While we cannot stress how important it is to have a clean surface before applying powder, expensive pre-treatment equipment is not necessary for entry-level coating operations that can employ manual cleaning (e.g., using tack rags and solvents) as so Must.
Powder Coating Equipment suppliers
we can custom made equipment for customer.
