[HN Gopher] BMW's New Overspray-Free Paint Works Like an Inkjet ...
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       BMW's New Overspray-Free Paint Works Like an Inkjet Printer
        
       Author : clouddrover
       Score  : 50 points
       Date   : 2021-10-02 04:59 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.carscoops.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.carscoops.com)
        
       | hownottowrite wrote:
       | The technology actually belongs to Durr. They've been building
       | paint shops for BMW for a few years now.
       | 
       | https://www.durr.com/en/products/paint-shop-application-tech...
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | It's actually by this company:
       | 
       | https://www.durr.com/en/products/paint-shop-application-tech...
        
       | tguvot wrote:
       | >BMW's New Overspray-Free Paint Works Like an Inkjet Printer
       | 
       | Does it mean that it won't paint black if it's out of color
       | cartridge ?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | jcims wrote:
       | Cool concept, looks super slow relative to exciting assembly
       | plant paint though. Upside is you can buy a plaid car from the
       | factory, downside is it's +$5k and an extra month lead time.
        
         | joosters wrote:
         | The article claims that it _saves_ money, rather than costing
         | extra.
        
           | smoyer wrote:
           | Looking at the orange base-coat in the video, I'd suggest it
           | saves money versus hand-painted custom paint jobs but as
           | every surface of the car (inside doors) are orange, I'd say
           | that was applied by the traditional robot painters (with HVLP
           | guns).
        
           | jcims wrote:
           | I think that is relative to custom paint vs existing manual
           | methods. That i would agree with, i just don't see this
           | replacing single tone paint methods. Which likely wasn't why
           | it was built, so not sure why i'm pointing that out haha.
        
         | sen wrote:
         | Considering there's already 6 month waits on new cars, I'd
         | happily throw in an extra month if it meant I got to use an
         | online editor to design my own paint job.
        
       | dkdk8283 wrote:
       | Is this a new technology or just a new use case for an existing
       | process? Inkjet print heads are very close to the surface being
       | painted but this process appears to have a few inches of
       | clearance.
       | 
       | I suspect the paint has additives to help with this process. We
       | didn't see any color other than black in this demo.
       | 
       | The video doesn't show any close up pictures of the process but
       | it looks novel.
        
         | jjoonathan wrote:
         | I've seen this in UV printers, too (UV = inkjet, but the ink is
         | cured with UV instead of solvent evaporation).
         | 
         | I poked around to figure out how they can print from so far
         | away, but couldn't find any sources talking about it, and if
         | printing from ~10cm away needs special tricks to accomplish or
         | not.
         | 
         | The one trick I can think of to extend print distance would be
         | increasing the drop size. That would probably be acceptable
         | when printing on cars (the article) or mugs (UV printers) -- is
         | that the trick?
        
       | Dylovell wrote:
       | Hopefully this develops into a handheld, so I can use this to
       | paint the walls in my house without spending hours taping.
        
         | Freaken wrote:
         | This is electrostatically applied, a bit like powder coating
         | from my understanding, so yeah, it probably won't work on
         | drywall.
        
           | omgtehlion wrote:
           | From TFA: > the new method works without electrostatics,
           | relying instead on jet application.
        
             | Freaken wrote:
             | True, my bad, read the exact opposite.
        
         | omgtehlion wrote:
         | There are a lot of (quite limited) handheld ink printers on
         | aliexpress ))
        
       | iratewizard wrote:
       | Can this be applied to make those creepy anime cars, but directly
       | onto the body instead of a vinyl wrap?
        
       | mothsonasloth wrote:
       | Non-OEM paint cartridge detected. Unable to paint car.
        
       | idiotsecant wrote:
       | I think the 'no overspray' aspect of this is probably a bit
       | oversold, given that there doesn't appear to be any novel
       | technology here - just close spray through a flow orifice. People
       | who are willing to pay for this kind of service want clean, high
       | contrast lines. Tape does a great job of this, I am skeptical
       | that this can compare. If it does I'm sure it'll be huge though.
        
         | rootusrootus wrote:
         | The lines in the video look very comparable to tape lines.
         | Would need to see very close up to be 100% sure but it looks
         | promising.
        
           | birdman3131 wrote:
           | What I notice is they did an outline at a slower and likely
           | higher accuracy mode then came back and filled at a higher
           | speed.
        
       | throwawaysea wrote:
       | Given that car factories already use charged paint particles and
       | bodies to minimize paint usage and waste, how useful is the
       | overspray aspect here?
        
         | krasin wrote:
         | >The overspray-free technology also allows vehicles with
         | intricate designs, including two-tone offerings, to be painted
         | faster and cheaper.
         | 
         | This is the use case. As a matter of historical anecdote, the
         | very same use case was the motivation to develop painter's
         | tape: https://paintdenver.com/the-history-of-painters-tape/
        
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       (page generated 2021-10-02 23:00 UTC)