IR FLASH OFF BOOTHS
I.R. flash off booths are used to flash off the water based color top coat in only a one (1) minute IR exposure cycle prior to getting the high solids solvent based clear coat applied in the next booth
They allow the Companies to fit this IR flash off system into their plants without major booth and conveyor modifications in order to convert over to water based color paints. Most of these were originally designed to be processing “wet on wet” solvent based top coats/clear coat paints which only allowed one minute of flash off time between the two coats.
This technology employs “High Purity” (also known as “narrow spectrum”) medium wavelength infrared. The long term success we have had with these installations clearly demonstrates our capabilities.
This demonstrates the technology of maintaining “wavelength purity” by utilizing twin tube gold back quartz IR emitters, sliding mounting tracks for field adjustment, and interior oven wall reflectors which are gold plated to obtain 99% reflectivity of the primary emission for ultimate wavelength purity.
This IR Moving Arch application is for drying and curing a 2K polyurethane paint which has just been applied to railcars within the spray booth. This moving IR Arch is stored at the end of the booth area with its legs folded up and it is protected by a plug type baffle to keep any over spray from getting on the IR equipment when it is not being used.
Once the paint is applied, the system is activated and the arch automatically moves over the railcar at a specific recipe of power intensity and rate of movement (speed). The system allows for many recipes to be able to process primer, topcoat, and metallic paints of various paint suppliers which all may have slightly different IR processing requirements.
The other photo is of our testing facility which is solely dedicated to developing and then validating innovative thermal and UV related processes.
