Dürr manufactures 18,000th painting robot

Dürr is equipping a new top coat line for interior and exterior painting of the new Audi Q6 E-Tron series for car manufacturer Audi in Ingolstadt. The anniversary robot, an EcoRP L033i, will be installed in the booth for interior painting in May. The six-axis painting robot will be equipped with Dürr's latest atomizer generation, the EcoBell4. Thanks to the 4-main-needle technology, the patented system requires only four seconds for each color change. "This application technology enables us to connect the three colors that we paint most frequently to the atomizer simultaneously and directly. This significantly reduces paint and solvent consumption," explains Sven Veit, responsible for production planning in the paint shop at AUDI AG. With the latest EcoBell4 atomizer technology from Dürr, the car manufacturer not only saves operating costs, but also protects the environment by generating fewer VOCs. The new top coat line is equipped with a total of 28 robots and the corresponding application technology. Dürr is also supplying a quality measuring cell, in which the layer thickness and structure of the paint as well as the color tone are measured, and a cleaning station. Here, two EcoRS Clean F robots with spring rollers clean the car bodies. For this project, Audi is also relying on an EcoSupply P special paint supply system with pigging technology from Dürr. The system can flexibly supply an unlimited number of colors in succession for application.

Dürr delivered its first painting robot, an RP7 robot, to Nissan in Spain in 1998. The mechanical and plant engineering company is now selling the third generation of robots, which was launched in 2016. During production and maintenance, the Dürr robot family benefits from its modular design. The color changer and dosing pump are housed on the front arm of the robot, ensuring fast color changes with low paint loss and rinsing agent consumption. Dürr handed over the anniversary robot to Audi at its headquarters in Bietigheim-Bissingen at the end of April. "We are always delighted when we receive a challenging project. After all, painting a car in large quantities and to a high standard of quality is our daily work. What is new at Audi are the numerous innovations that we are bringing to the field for the first time: the EcoBell4 with 4-main needle technology and painting technology with High Transfer Efficiency. This is what makes the project so special," says Dr. Lars Friedrich, Head of the Application Technology Division at Dürr.