CM focus on technology IPCM Magazine n.84

Dec 21, 2023

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Seppi: a Pioneer in Mechanised Agricultural Mulching, a Pioneer in Environmentally Friendly Coating.

Efficiency and streamlining of production facilities and their energy consumption have been among the hottest topics in the last few years. SEPPI M. (Mezzolombardo, Trento, Italy), a leading company in the production of agricultural mulchers, has recently collaborated with Savim Europe (Arbizzano, Verona, Italy) and a group of industrial partners including CM Automation, Wagner, and Sherwin-Williams to build a coating plant that would be the heart of the company itself, fuelled with biomass to increase efficiency and reduce environmental impact.

Coating at the core of SEPPI M.’s activity
“Coating had been a headache,” notes Lorenz Seppi, “since I started working at the company in 2006, as the province of Bolzano had already banned the use of solvent-based paints. [...]
Main features of the line
SEPPI’s paint shop consists of two operating units, both featuring equipment from Savim, which acted as the general contractor: an automatic line with a two-rail conveyor from CM Automazione with a capacity of up to 2000 kg, which can coat parts with a maximum crosssectional dimension of 1.5x1.5 m and a maximum length of 3.2 m;
2 static oven-booths for finishing oversized parts, each of which can coat parts up to 6 metres long, served by a cleaning booth with a manual nozzle and using a pickling product.
The pre-treatment phase performed by the automatic line includes 3 stages, i.e. pickling and 2 rinses with mains water. After drying, the parts enter the booth for manual application of the epoxy primer, followed by a 40-minute flash-off in the oven. The workpieces then enter the water-based top coat application booth and finish the cycle in the drying oven at 70 °C. When designing the conveyor, CM Automazione was faced with a plant engineering challenge due to the limited space available and the characteristics (size and weight) of the products to be processed. The choice fell on the robust,
flexible, and reliable XD45/59 PF Power&Free. The line develops for approximately 120 metres and the chain moves with a continuous motion at 7 m/1’.
The loading/unloading area is served by a counterweighted elevator/ lowerator for safe part handling. Stop stations located along the line allow for the stationing of the load bars during the coating cycle. The pickling and double rinsing stations are served by tilting systems to ensure optimal pre-treatment. In order to guarantee the correct stationary times, the flash-off and final cooling areas have 2 storage buffers with a sideshift system, again highly compact to optimise the available space.