Battling with limited production space?
Increasing quality and capacity through different methods
Very often in metal pre-treatment, quality and capacity increases are thought to require a very large number of new pre-treatment steps and production area. The correct innovative chemicals and processes can simplify and speed up the process of dip tank, chamber or spray line solutions, while improving lead time and quality.
Dipping solutions
The number of chemical tanks and the processing times have a direct impact on production capacity. Dipping solutions are often a great alternative to, for example, manual washing, freeing up working time for other tasks as quality increases. The one-step Toran solution achieves the quality level (corrosivity categories) of three-to-five-step dipping solutions with one tank for oil-removing corrosion protection treatment. This speeds up the process many times over, and while the quality improves, the required production area decreases.
Single-dose washers
In the pre-treatment process of a single-dose washer, washing, rinsing and drying are combined in the same chamber. For example, the one-step Toran product can replace a multi-step alkaline process, resulting in a 40–50% capacity increase compared to traditional water washing. With the Toran chemical, the whole pre-treatment process takes about 16–18 minutes including drying, while with a single-dose washer, it takes about 25–40 minutes.
Spray lines
On a painting line, for example, a 10m shorter pre-treatment step reduces the product lead time by about 7–12%, depending on the total length of the line and its speed. In other words, the piece stays on the line for a shorter time and during the day, more pieces pass the painting line. The Toran spray line is on average 40–50% shorter than that of water-based solutions (e.g. about 16 metres at a line speed of 1 m/s including drying).
The basic solution of the Pronortec thin film technology consists of a wash, 3 x rinse and Pronortec steps. This five-step process can replace the traditional 6–12-step thin film and phosphating lines with equivalent quality. Corresponding or better quality is, therefore, achieved with a shorter line, which also allows for a capacity increase in production.