At EP Coatings, we work hard to meet all of your thermal spray requirements, offering a range of thermal spray equipment covering everything from complete spray systems to auxiliary equipment. Most of our thermal spray equipment, like the products in our ever-expanding auxiliary range, can be supplied as part of turn-key solutions or as stand-alone purchases – so simply get in touch with our helpful team to discuss your specific needs.
Our auxiliary equipment range currently includes, but is not restricted to:
- Acoustical spray booth
- Chillers and cooling systems
- Dust extraction and collecting
- Gun and part manipulation
- Mounting fixtures
- Part cooling
- Powder feeders
- Tecnar Accuraspray 4.0
Acoustical Spray Booth
Our acoustical spray booths are a useful piece of thermal spray equipment constructed with a flexible modular panel design so that the dimensions, layout, and color can be customized to suit customer specifications. The spray booth’s panels and doors are constructed to minimize the breakout noise to approximately 75 to 80 dBa at 1 meter from the spray booth.
In order to achieve this impressive feat, each panel of the booth is constructed by layering sound-absorbent materials of different densities between an outer sheet of galvanized mild steel and a perforated steel inner lining. Other soundproofing features of our acoustical spray booths include:
- Air inlet and outlet attenuators matched to the airflow capacity of the applied thermal coating process
- Options of having a single-leaf door, a double-leaf door, or sliding overhead doors (for easy loading via an overhead crane) that are heavily sealed to keep the noise from thermal spray coating processes inside the booth
- All required penetration feed-throughs for extract ducting, electrical cabling, etc.
Chillers and Cooling Systems
EPC stock a complete product line of chillers and cooling systems designed to take up a small amount of floorspace without compromising on performance (offering 30-200kW in cooling capacity).
An E-Pure system and filter module can easily be integrated into the cooling water circuit to maintain good water quality and prevent mineral deposition on the contacting surfaces of the torch through filtration and conditioning. This combined with the E-Pure system maintaining a stable electrical conductivity of the cooling water extends the life expectancy of nozzles and electrodes, saving customers money in the long run.
Our cooling systems can also offer customers:
- Flexibility
- Our cooling units are customizable and come with a great variety of special equipment and configuration options to suit various thermal spray processes and customer requirements
- Reliability and quality
- Our chillers are built using the very best components from renowned manufacturers to ensure maximum reliability and quality
- Energy efficiency
- Chillers are often bigger than actually necessary for a major share of load profiles, resulting in relatively high emissions and excessive energy costs. EP The good news is that EPC supplies chillers with RPM-regulated components and a control system developed to automatically adapt the cooling capacity to the thermal spray process load profile. This means that the system generates only as much capacity as is needed, reducing emissions and energy costs.
Dust Extraction and Collection
Good ventilation is key when it comes to thermal spray coating processes. In order to ensure a booth is properly ventilated, appropriate airflow is needed along with a reliable dust collecting system.
EPC is proud to cooperate with Camfill/Farr to fulfil our clients’ ventilation needs, as they supply what is in our opinion the most effective dust collecting system available in the market today. The Camfill/Farr GX-series dry cartridge dust collector has been carefully designed for filtering and collecting dust while also removing excess heat generated by thermal spraying processes. The GX-series can be installed inside the factory or outdoors and has a wide range of capacities that suit a range of thermal spray systems and processes.
Gun and Part Manipulation Equipment
Each and every product in EPC’ range of thermal spray equipment is robustly built to function flawlessly in a harsh thermal spray coating environment. This saves our customers time and money in replacing worn-out components and instead provides them with reliable, durable coating solutions.
We supply gun and part manipulation equipment that allows accurate control over the movement of the workpiece and its relative position to the spray torch, ensuring customers get the precise, flawless coatings they deserve time and time again.
Our manipulation equipment can also be tailor made to suit any specific process requirements and production volume needs according to our customers wishes. When you order a bespoke system, our engineers and designers will invest time in understanding your unique needs and requirements so they can develop a truly personalized solution using a lot of care and attention to detail. Our manufacturing teams will use the approved designs to create high-quality, highly durable custom manipulation equipment that will enhance your daily operations.
No matter the shape or size of your part, at EPC we have a wide variety of part and gun manipulation equipment to help you achieve a consistent coating on even the most difficult of surfaces. We supply basic manual turntables and manipulators as well as more sophisticated robotic systems and custom-built systems that meet your unique requirements. The range includes, but is not restricted to:
- Carousel loading systems
- Multi-spindle add-on
- Multi-spindle turntables
- Turntables – spray lathes
- Any combination of above
Component manipulation features include:
- Accurate indexing and positioning
- Automatic coating thickness measurement
- Fully master/slave integrated
- Multi-axis robotic manipulation
- Payload and speed design flexibility
- Safety alarms and E-stop interlocks
- Stand-alone controlled
- Zero speed monitoring
Mounting Fixtures
We stock a wide variety of gun-mounting fixtures that are compatible with both robot and/or thermal spray lathe systems. Our range includes special application fixtures and quick clamping and release tools offering optimal coating performance and improved operator accessibility, so our customers can rest assured they are getting the very best value products for their money.
All of our spray torch fixtures are made to electrically isolate the torch from the system, eliminating any interference between the thermal spray torch and the manipulation system and improving the coating process. What’s more, we can include a torch parking station inside the booth as a handy place to store the torches when they aren’t in use.
Part Cooling
Part cooling is an integral part of the thermal spraying process, and EPC has all the part cooling solutions you need for successful thermal spraying operations. We stock:
- Air distribution units
- These modular units come with separate connections for gun air jets, a cooling stand with cooling nozzles, a manual air gun, and any additional modules/connections our customers request. The built-in pressure sensor can tell when the compressed air pressure is insufficient and then let the robot controller know that there’s a problem.
- Cooling stands
- Type Venturi (with a total of 4 nozzles) are mounted on a separate and moveable post for optimal alignment of the cooling nozzles, which can be opened or closed with a separate manual valve. Both the cooling air supply to the external cooling jets and the gun-mounted cooling jets can be manually controlled with a switch or automatically controlled by the robotic program
- Gun air jets
- A connection for gun air jets that comes with a valve that can be operated manually or automatically
- Manual air guns
- An extra connection for a manual air gun can be added to the air distribution unit
Simply get in touch with our team to find out more!
Powder Feeders
Powder feeders supplied by EPC are specifically designed for use in powder-based thermal spray processes. Our feeders are more than capable of providing consistent, highly accurate powder feeding for both thermal spray and laser cladding processes.
FST-10 and FST-20
Our sister company, Flame Spray Technologies (FST), has developed 2 models of powder feeders: the FST-10 (single feeder) and the FST-20 (twin feeder). The FST-20 model can operate two feeding lines separately or simultaneously. Both of these powder feeders can be supplied as stand-alone units or integrated into a more complex thermal spray system.
Stand-alone feeders can be independently operated without the use of external controllers, or they can be master/slave integrated via Profinet with existing coating systems. The powder feeders can be equipped with mass flow controllers for maximum accuracy and consistency when it comes to controlling the carrier gases. When integrated with our digital series, all powder feed functions are closed-loop controlled via Horizon operation software.
Stand-alone feeders have an independent control panel for setting the required powder feed parameters. Both the FST-10 and FST-20 powder feeders come with 1.5 or 5.0 liter hoppers that are designed for high pressure processes up to 11 bar (150 psi), and these hoppers can be equipped with special disc and spreader/suction units for process-specific and stable-powder feed rates for different thermal spray applications.
PF-50 Powder Feeder
The PF-50 powder feeder is a pressurized unit specifically designed for an array of thermal spray applications. This economical powder feeder will save you valuable time and money during all powder-based thermal spray processes, and this combined with its accurate and repeatable performance has made it a popular option when it comes to powder feeder spray equipment.
The PF-50 feeder operates on a volumetric principle that directly controls the powder feed rate by the speed of the powder wheel. To set the wheel speed, simply enter the desired RPM into the controller, and then when the PF-50 is switched to ‘feed mode’, the powder wheel will ramp-up to the set RPM, maintaining that speed with precision.
Tecnar Accuraspray 4.0
More and more people are choosing to monitor their thermal spray coating activities with the Tecnar Accuraspray 4.0 to ensure maximum productivity and coating quality. The Accuraspray 4.0 can be integrated into a full spray booth system, where it monitors particle and plume properties (such as particle speed and temperature, plume intensity, density, and width) before each spray process. Operators are automatically notified if spray conditions are not properly optimized, reducing the risk of failure and ensuring coating quality and increased production rates.
As well as checking that plume and particle parameters are correct, the real-time availability of the Accuraspray 4.0 also helps with:
- Increasing coating quality and consistency
- Increasing earnings
- Reducing coating development costs
- Reducing coating failures
- Reducing parameter development times
The Tecnar Accuraspray 4.0 comes with a ton of advantages, so it’s no wonder this system is such a popular piece of spray equipment. It is a truly universal solution for thermal spray coatings, designed to aid with plasma spray processes, HVOF/HVAF, suspensions, arc spraying, and combustion flame spraying – and thanks to its web-based interface, users can monitor these processes anywhere, anytime.
The Accuraspray 4.0 is easy to install and operate, and there’s plenty of online training and support available if needed. The unit allows users to carry out an efficient spraying process thanks to its accurate forecasting of coating thickness, and ensures a consistent coating on every run which then extends the lifetime of consumables and enhances reproductivity.
Technical specifications
- Sensor head
- 190 mm X 110 mm X 62 mm
- 5 in. X 4.3 in. X 2.5 in.
- Power module
- 230 mm X 230 mm X 100 mm
- 9 in. X 9 in. X 3.9 in.
- Measurement ranges
- Particle temperature range
- 1000°C and higher at 3% accuracy
- 1832°F and higher at 3% accuracy
- Particle velocity range
- 5-1200 m/s at 2% accuracy
- 3-3900 ft/s at 2% accuracy
- Spray plume intensity and peak height 2% accuracy
- Spray plume width & position 0.1 mm accuracy 0.004 in. accuracy
- Measurement volume information
- CCD camera field of view 400 mm 15.7 in.
- Accuraspray measurement volume 3.2 mm DIA x 25 mm DOF = 200 mm3 DIA x 1 in. DOF = 0.01 in3
- Substrate temperature pyrometer from -18 to 538°C from 0 to 1000°F
- Plant supplies
- Power requirements 120-240 VAC, 50-60 Hz 5A
- Air supply 1.35 to 2 bar (20-30 psi) of clean dry compressed air