Design and fabrication of Automated mechanism for chemical pre-treatment process in Powder coating

Abstract

The paper is intended to design and fabricate an automated mechanism for chemical pre-treatment process in powder coating for avoiding the manual handling of metal substrates in chemical pre-treatment processing in order to remove dust, to avoid corrosion and to provide good adhesion for powder coating. For this, a gantry crane structure is proposed where two vertical columns and a horizontal beam setup are designed to which a movable carriage is mounted across the horizontal beam. The movable carriage is fitted with a pulley mounted by a rope, the end of the rope is connected to a hanger which has a workpiece holder to which a metal substrate is hanged. The process is controlled by a programmable controller which is programmed with appropriate delays and according to the process designated, the hanged workpiece will move up and down and get dipped into the chemical tank. Once the delay was completed, the carriage automatically moves horizontally to the next tank. The gantry crane structure with movable carriage having pulley and programmable controller are well suited for automating pre-treatment process and it can safeguard manual workers' hands from hazardous chemicals in the tank and also achieving the exact delay operations of each tank process.