The Oderzo factory features 4 painting plants. Our activities for studying and applying electrostatic products and technology involved a Sprimag installation that ensures greater production volumes and more paint used. The plant includes 3 cabs for primer, enamel and transparent paints and 12 conventional mixed air guns or HVLP when the former were under repair. The addition of electrostatics in this case meant significant savings of paint, over-spray and production rejects, so we analysed average production volumes, types and amounts of paints used, assessed results obtainable and presented the advantages of electrostatic technology to Plastal SpA Management, Sergio Gallo and assistant PPG laboratory experts.

Electrostatic Technology
Electrostatic technology has been applied to paint plants to minimise paint consumption, application and over spray times. All manual or automatic high and low pressure spray technologies can be converted to electrostatic. Each will require special actions according to the plant and paint under review directed at achieving a safety system and as high as possible transfer efficiency TE, construed to mean percent quantity of paint product attached to the part being processed versus the amount sprayed. TE varies according the part configuration, operating parameters such as delivery, nozzle size, air delivery and the like, as well as paint features.

Application
Considering advantages achievable and any critical issues as might be met with, such as in finishing, coverage and the like, 5 separate stages were used.
1) Product and process functional tests at the Quattordio, Alessandria PPG operating facility on application of conductive primers with conventional guns and electrostatic application, or metal and pastel primers and BMW transparent material blends on parts mounted on Plastal SpA supplied balance supports.
2) Repeat test as above on the Sprimag Oderzo, Treviso production plant.
3) Conductive primer addition, and checked application and setting. Electrostatic painting of plastic components required first cab application of a primer capable of making the piece conductive; jointly with PPG we identified a product that could satisfy the requirements of most plastic material produced by Plastal, except PBT-PET that involved a small production batch for which the possible use of some additive is under review. The conductive primer was applied with the some tooling as used for the conventional one, as no further investment was required.  
4) Installation, inspections and paint tests of third cab transparent paint electrostatic guns. 4 conventional guns were replaced with 2 electrostatic ones in this case. Tooling started regular production at test end.
5) Installation, inspections and paint tests of second cab primer paint electrostatic guns. 4 conventional guns were replaced with 2 electrostatic ones, coupled to 1 or 2 conventional guns subject to features of the part to be processed. This operation was required to ensure outstanding surface finishing even with metal base products, as the paint metal particles tend to align in one direction; this mix guarantees high quality levels. Tooling started regular production at test end.

Jointly with the Plastal and technical PPG staff we not only achieved part finish quality equivalent to conventional methods but also the following results, as documented by Oderzo Manufacturìng Facility Painting Manager Giorgio Giurato:
–20% on primers
–30 % on transparent paints
This is clearly an average value measured on all parts produced, as consumption depends on part morphology.