Paint spraybooth operation—The key is consistency

Abstract

Summary Maintaining the balance between the air supply, air exhaust, and sludge-water subsystems is the key to maintaining consistent booth performance and optimizing the painting process. To achieve a controllable process only the air-supply subsystem should be regularly adjusted to react to changing conditions. If the air-supply subsystem is to serve as the adjustment for the entire spraybooth system proper maintenance of the air exhaust and sludge-water subsystem is critical to reducing variation and improving process control. Typically, the air-exhaust and sludge-water subsystems are maintained through periodic cleaning, which are costly, time and labor intensive, and by necessity confined to shutdown periods. Such conventional practices, scheduled as system conditions approach intolerable, are not conducive to maintaining consistent results. Part Two of this series will explore novel approaches to the maintenance of the sludge-water and air-exhaust subsystems, which have demonstrated the ability to provide consistent results and continuous improvement in the painting process.