Sustainability 29. July 2026

Why spray when you can print? That was the key question that led up to our showcase – and one that many manufacturers of plastic parts using industrial processes are no doubt asking themselves. The highlight: coating a polycarbonate visor using an industrial robot at industrial-grade speed and precision.

The compact painting cell, based on our robot cell (either type A- or B-cell), can paint a complex 3D surface right next to the SGM with minimal investment and a small footprint. Not even explosion protection is required due to the minimal release of material into the environment, which underlines the sustainability of the solution. The application was first implemented using the InkBOT from fpt robotics (a KUKA articulated-arm robot with an Xaar 1003 GS12 print head, which delivers 360 dots per inch ‘dpi’) and the UVHC 3000 from Momentive Performance Materials.

Compared with traditional spray painting, digital coating technology requires only around one-sixth of the floor space and energy consumption, whilst offering significantly higher efficiency. Thanks to the ability to adjust the coating thickness to within a micrometre, results of exceptionally high quality can be achieved, whilst material consumption is reduced by up to 90 per cent compared with conventional spray methods. Furthermore, both traditional coating effects, such as frame effects, and paint runs can be precisely achieved. As neither time-consuming stencilling nor masking is required, set-up times are considerably reduced. Changes to the design can also be implemented within seconds by adjusting the digital data set.