Bietigheim-Bissingen: Mechanical and plant engineering company Dürr produced its 18,000th painting robot for Audi in Ingolstadt. The robot features the latest EcoBell4 atomizer with 4-main needle technology for rapid color changes with minimal paint and rinsing agent losses.
Dürr is equipping a new top coat line for car manufacturer Audi in Ingolstadt to paint the interior and exterior of the new Audi Q6 e-tron series. The milestone robot, an EcoRP L033i, will be installed in May in the interior paint booth. The six-axis painting robot, equipped with Dürr’s latest EcoBell4 atomizer, requires just four seconds for each color change thanks to the patented 4-main-needle technology. “This application technology enables us to connect our three most frequently used colors directly to the atomizer, significantly reducing paint and rinsing agent consumption,” explained Sven Veit, Director Manufacturing Engineering Paint Shop at AUDI AG. With Dürr’s latest EcoBell4 atomizer technology, the car manufacturer not only saves operating costs but also protects the environment with fewer VOC emissions.
Sustainable paint supply
The new top coat line includes a total of 28 robots and corresponding application technology. Dürr is also supplying a quality measurement cell to measure paint layer thickness, structure, and shade, as well as a cleaning station where two EcoRS Clean F robots use feather rollers to clean the car bodies. For this project, Audi is also using Dürr‘s EcoSupply P special color supply system with pigging technology to flexibly provide unlimited colors consecutively for application.
Painting robots success story
In 1998, Dürr supplied its first painting robot, an RP7 robot, to Nissan in Spain. The mechanical and plant engineering company is now on its third robot generation, introduced in 2016, benefiting from a modular structure that places the color changer and metering pump on the robot’s front arm, ensuring fast color changes with minimal paint loss and rinsing agent consumption.
At the end of April, Dürr delivered the milestone robot to Audi at its Bietigheim-Bissingen headquarters. “We are always prepared to take on a challenging project. After all, painting a large volume of cars to a high-quality standard is what we do every day. New at Audi are the numerous innovations we are implementing for the first time: the EcoBell4 with 4-main needle technology and high transfer efficiency painting technology. This is what makes the project so special,” said Dr. Lars Friedrich, Head of Division Application Technology at Dürr.