Steering Wheel Foam Parts Release AgentSpraying

Steering wheels for the automotive industry are made of a metal skeleton and an outer ring of foam injection moulding. The foaming process requires spraying release agent on the upper and lower moulds to prevent sticking, so that the steering wheel can be taken out after foaming. At the same time, the surface of the release agent needs to be sprayed with black paint to ensure the color of the steering wheel. The whole process is tried and tested by almost all car companies.

Customer Pain Points

The original steering wheel foam manufacturing process is completely produced by workers. Now with the increase of labour costs, as well as the hazards of the spraying industry itself and the control of the cost of production materials. Enterprises began to use robots to complete most of the work of steering wheel production, very good to help enterprises to solve the above problems.

Solution

A DUCO GCR14-1400 collaborative robotic arm with 2 nozzles and 1 gripper at the end is responsible for loading and unloading the steering wheel skeleton and spraying the release agent and paint on the 3 foaming injection moulding machines. First, the robotic arm arrives at the production station of the injection moulding machine and sprays the upper and lower moulds with the release agent, mainly spraying the skeleton and the outer foaming area, and then sprays the paint of the upper mould, after the spraying is completed, the robotic arm goes to the station to pick up the steering wheel skeleton and move it to the lower mould. Because of the long foaming time, the collaborative arm can complete the production action of three injection moulding machines at the same time.

benefits

1. Save one original worker. Collaborative robots can be produced 24 hours a day, saving two shifts of worker hours.
2. Compared with the original manual manual spraying operations, now automated control of spraying, spraying fuel can be quantitative control, saving the cost of spraying fuel.
3. From the point of view of safety production, the original workers need to wear masks, eye masks, protective release agent and paint mist. Now the collaborative arm only needs the appearance of protective clothing can work, in the use of protective equipment to save production costs, but also in the protection of workers’ health has a great gain.