Frog
Member Extraordinaire
I thought it might be useful to share my DIY powder coating set up. This took a lot of iterations to get right and a fair few 20,000v tingles along the way.
It looks like this:
The gun comprises an air duster to use on my 100psi 50l compressor (you can see a mini regulator at the bottom of the handle - essential to get the flow right) some 20mm Conduit, a conduit t piece, a couple of brass connectors some tubing and a wire. It is the powder coating equivalent of an air brush - a full size powder coating gun is too big really for just doing moderators and small parts for the motorbike.
I tried various electrode configurations and the best was simply a frayed wire:
The electronics consists of a small hobby box with a 12v supply to 20kv output ion generator, plus a 12v LED 'on' indicator light an switch and a connector socket for the 12v supply (old power supply from a redundant internet router). Wires exit the box - Positive (to the gun) and negative to the work piece end in small croc clips for attachment.
This set up works very well and powder for powder coating is cheap (a little goes a long way). There are many colours and finishes available. All finishes seen shinier than their paint equivalent - i.e. matt powder coat is more like satin paint and satin powder coat is pretty glossy....
Once the powder is applied the piece is 'cooked' for 20minutes from cold at 180c in a little 'toaster oven' (the size of the oven dictates the size of the work piece you can do). There is a bit of a knack to it and rigorous degreasing is essential but it's not some mystic art - pretty darn easy really.
Total cost of my set up - gun, electronics and oven came to £65 - not including money spent on earlier versions that did not work or charged me up to 20kv instead of the work piece
It looks like this:
The gun comprises an air duster to use on my 100psi 50l compressor (you can see a mini regulator at the bottom of the handle - essential to get the flow right) some 20mm Conduit, a conduit t piece, a couple of brass connectors some tubing and a wire. It is the powder coating equivalent of an air brush - a full size powder coating gun is too big really for just doing moderators and small parts for the motorbike.
I tried various electrode configurations and the best was simply a frayed wire:
The electronics consists of a small hobby box with a 12v supply to 20kv output ion generator, plus a 12v LED 'on' indicator light an switch and a connector socket for the 12v supply (old power supply from a redundant internet router). Wires exit the box - Positive (to the gun) and negative to the work piece end in small croc clips for attachment.
This set up works very well and powder for powder coating is cheap (a little goes a long way). There are many colours and finishes available. All finishes seen shinier than their paint equivalent - i.e. matt powder coat is more like satin paint and satin powder coat is pretty glossy....
Once the powder is applied the piece is 'cooked' for 20minutes from cold at 180c in a little 'toaster oven' (the size of the oven dictates the size of the work piece you can do). There is a bit of a knack to it and rigorous degreasing is essential but it's not some mystic art - pretty darn easy really.
Total cost of my set up - gun, electronics and oven came to £65 - not including money spent on earlier versions that did not work or charged me up to 20kv instead of the work piece
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