The GEMA OptiFlex Pro is the latest advancement in powder coating application technology. In this video, Eddie Rhodes, Air Power Account Manager in Tennessee, walks you through the new Gema OptiFlex Pro powder coating handgun, the controller and explains the first-ever power gun with powerboost that provides 110 kV and 110 microamps application support.
Manufacturing facilities in today’s competitive market strive to produce the highest quality product. In this case study we will discuss the importance of recognizing every company’s desire to produce a premier product with the highest first place transfer efficiency.
A Custom Fabricator, producing products for the truck & and Bus industry
In order to distinguish them within the marketplace, the current manufacturing process needed to meet customer’s mil specs. Their current Powder Units were not producing enough Mils per MFG spec with a Quality finish. Examination by quality control engineers revealed that they were getting back ionization and orange peel when applying more powder and second coats. They determined that each operator had different settings and too much powder output. In addition they did not understand current and voltage and how they relate to a quality finish and high transfer efficiency.
In partnership with the customer, Air Power implemented an Gema OptiFlex 2 manual powder unit. The unit comes with 3 presets: 1: Flat Parts, 2: Recess/complex parts and 3: Recoat mode. In addition these cannot be changed by the operator and allowed ease of use with a simple repeatable process. The Patented Digital Valve control allowed for consistent precise powder output, powder savings, and reproducible coating results.
Currently, the customer is meeting their mil spec and producing repeatable results and has increased there transfer efficiently that has provided a 1 year Return on equipment investment.
Our 2018/19 National Sales Meeting – “No Fear, No Limits, No Excuses” surrounded the removal of roadblocks. We spent 2019 addressing these roadblocks through sales training, marketing initiatives, and more opportunities to meet vendors. Air Power has benefited from this endeavor and our organization continues to see growth. This year our Accelerate theme represents our initiative to Accelerate into 2020 without fear and the tools necessary to overcome any roadblocks.
We kicked off our Accelerate 2020 Sales Meeting at our new branch location in Greenville, SC. Our team arrived around 1pm with time to tour the new facility while helping themselves to drinks and light hors d’oeuvres. The team also participated in a friendly tire changing competition with the Ingersoll Rand replica Pit Stop, designed to mimic the real nascar pitstop experience. With the shortest time of 15 seconds, Rodney Benfield was announced as the winner!
Air Power President Dan Senff kicked off the meeting by welcoming our team to Greenville. 2019 was a great year for Air Power and we were excited to share our successes with our hard working team. We spent the evening enjoying the view from Up on the Roof Bar, where Air Power hosted a happy hour event. Our team along with our Top 5 Vendor sponsors enjoyed the beautiful Downtown Greenville view while we celebrated the end of the year.
Thursday began with breakfast in the Embassy Suites Downtown Riverplace. Our group moved into meeting space and we spent a few hours announcing some exciting process changes rolling out in 2020. Air Power is dedicated to continuous improvement to better serve not only our customers, but also our team members. At 10am, we kicked off the 2020 Product Training portion of our meeting. We gave each of our Top 5 Vendor Sponsors (Carlisle Fluid Technologies, Cleco Production Tools, Graco, Gema, and Ingersoll Rand) time with our team to focus on their 2020 initiatives. We find that when we focus on our goals as a team, it is impossible to fail.
After a day of getting our team revved up for 2020, we sent them to go get dressed up for our Banquet. The Accelerate 2020 Banquet and Awards Ceremony started with a Happy Hour in the foyer. Our team along with their spouses enjoyed mingling with our vendor sponsors. We enjoyed an amazing meal catered by Ruth’s Chris catering. As we wrapped up dinner, the Awards Ceremony began.
Our Big Winners of the night included:
1st Place: Austin Lambright
2nd Place: Len Morrison
3rd Place: Randy Pennington
Tommy Byrd
1st Place: Randy Pennington
2nd Place: Shaun Patterson
3rd Place: Paul Kelly
TVS/Truflow Award
Shaun Patterson
Filter Guru Award
Shaun Patterson
Customer Service Representative Awards
Most Line Items Quoted – Ricky Graves
Most quotes – Ricky Graves
Most Line items Booked/Ordered – Ricky Graves
Most Orders – Ricky Graves
Most Calls Taken – Todd Putman
Ashley Golding
Shaun Patterson
Zach Ritchie
Rodney Benfield
Raleigh, NC Branch
Wayne Cassidy – Branch Manager
Ashley Golding
Steve Thomas – 15 Year at Air Power (42 years in the Industry)
Ronnie Lowe – 43 years at Air Power
Robin Eanes – 46 years at Air Power
We spent Friday celebrating 2019 at Speed Factory Indoor Karting. We’d like to thank Carlisle Fluid Technologies for setting up their virtual spray painting simulator. Our team had a great time competing for the best Spray Finishing score. Everyone participated in the GO-Kart race and we spent the morning finding out, who is the fastest at Air Power. Our First Place prize went to Gary Lee! Second place went to Josh Strausbaugh and our Third Place went to Matthew Graham. We’d like to thank everybody for participating in the race!
Dedicating your powder hose specific to your color and special type of powder can save you time in color changes and prevent costly rejects. It can speed up your paint process, eliminate powder contamination and reduce clean up time. If you are frequently changing your powder color throughout the day, this is a great way to quickly and easily eliminate pain points and improve your application process.
The Gema E-APP paired with the OptiStar 4.0 Control Unit puts powerful information at your fingertips on your Apple or Android phone or tablet. Update software, change gun settings, manage run time, monitor powder output and keep an eye on powder usage. All this information is available to you through a single APP. If that’s not enough, you can also create and send PDF documents straight to your email from your device.
Don’t forget to check out our other Powder Coating Tech Tips!
The NEW Gema OptiFlex Pro is here. Air Power’s Travis Stirewalt shows off the OptiFlex Pro features and upgrades including the gun, control unit and the E-App.
The newly developed PowerBoost technology of the OptiFlex Pro series offers with the 110 kV the highest powder charging capacity in the powder coating industry while complying with safety regulations. The operator benefits from an outstanding coating performance.
With OptiFlex Pro you coat extremely efficiently and with consistently high quality. The PCC (Precise Charge Control) mode regulates the spray current even in the lowest ampere ranges (0-10 μA) with the highest accuracy. This prevents overcharging of even the most demanding powders such as metallic powder and ensures the highest quality in thick film and multi-layer applications and recess areas.
The new features of OptiFlex Pro also give you a technological edge. The Electrostatic App (E-App) with the integrated line management functions and service features make the coating process transparent and better controllable.
Have you thought about opening up your own powder coating business or adding powder coating to your manufacturing mix? This video with powder experts Eddie Rhodes and Travis Stirewalt will walk you through very important things to think about as you take that next step.
Learn more about our various Coating products
We’ve put together some helpful how-tos to help you powder coat like a PRO! Check out these informational tech tips:
Proper positioning of a powder coating gun while powder coating your parts helps the proper powder cloud optimize proper transfer efficiency and even coating of the powder coating finish. Learn about the corona field and how utilizing proper powder coating cloud positioning can help achieve not only a better finish, but save you money on costly rejects and over use of powder.
Gema OptiStar controls and presets are easily explained for optimum powder coating performance.
Maintaining easy to replace Gema OptiFlex gun, hose and pump wear parts from a preventive maintenance perspective yields high transfer efficiency, powder savings and a reduction in part rejects.
POWER – QUALITY – CONTROL
The new generation of OptiFlex Pro manual units impresses with additional application performance due to the outstanding PowerBoost technology. With OptiFlex Pro, you easily process all powder types and coat complex parts in superior quality – all this worldwide and in the most difficult industrial environments. The use of the Electrostatic App is your first step into Smart Factory Automation and makes the manual coating process transparent.
The OptiFlex Pro manual units are uncompromisingly and agilely designed for maximum industrial suitability and worldwide use. The intelligent and durable components fit perfectly together and form the powerful package for superior manual powder coating. The ergonomic and intuitive operation enables every user to achieve the best coating results at any time.
The newly developed PowerBoost technology of the OptiFlex Pro series offers with the 110kV the highest powder charging capacity in the powder coating industry while complying with safety regulations. The operator benefits from an outstanding coating performance. The new feature completes the proven high-voltage functionalities, such as PCC mode, presettings an individual coating programs and extends the application range significantly.
– The new OptiSelect Pro gun features a particularly robust and durable design. The ergonomic and light-weight gun is well-balanced in the hand, has a good grip and enables you to coat efficiently and faster.
– The new PowerBoost high-performance technology charges all types of powder even more efficiently. The benefits of the additional power provide higher productivity, faster conveying speeds and maximum area performance.
– The integrated remote control allows easily to activate the PowerBoost powder charging mode and to regulate the powder output right away.
– The integrated cleaning of the powder conveying components can be enhanced by the optional PowerClean module, which ensures a faster and efficient cleaning. This improves performance when processing difficult powders and facilitates colour change.
– The latest generation of nozzles ensures an excellent powder distribution and penetration.
With OptiFlex Pro you coat extremely efficiently and with consistently high quality.
The PCC (Precise Charge Control) mode regulates the spray current even in the lowest ampere ranges (0-10µA) with the highest accuracy. This prevents overcharging of even the most demanding powders such as metallic powder and ensures the highest quality in thick film and multi-layer applications and recess areas.
The DVC (Digital Valve Control) technology allows an exact and repeatable adjustment of the powder output and ensures an uniform layer thickness.
The new OptiFlow injector with cartridge design further optimises the venturi principle in terms of transport efficiency and low wear. By simply exchanging the one-piece cartridge, the injector performance is optimally maintained. The usage of fewer parts and the seamless design of the injector improves the ability for fast color changes.
Main features OptiFlow injector:
-Cartridge design merges injector nozzle and conveying insert into a single component
– Powder outputs of up to 450 g/min achievable depending upon hose length and diameter
– Quick release design for the powder hose
– Unique Inline-Design
– Cartridge sleeve manufactured from high quality non stick materials
– Robust diecast injector housing
– Quick disconnect air connections
For frequent color changes
If your production requires frequent and quick color changes, then we would recommend the OptiFlex Pro B, which is designed to use the manufacturer’s original powder box.
– Highest flexibility
– Shortest and cleanest color changes
– For direct transport from the original powder box
– Complete emptying of the powder box thanks to the tilted vibrating base
– Integrated fluidization
– Scratch resistant and easy accessible box plate
OptiFlex Pro QColor change in 35 seconds
Are super-fast colour changes your priority? OptiFlex Pro Q is equipped with additional features that allow:
– Super-fast colour change in 30-40 seconds
– Suitable for all types of powder
– Minimal space usage
OptiFlex Pro FFor continuous powder use
If continuous use of the same powder over a long period of time is the bulk of your production schedule, then we would recommend the OptiFlex Pro F with the 50-litre fluidized powder container.
– Ideal for large powder quantities
– Compatible with all powder types
– Scratch-free 50 litre powder container with fluidization
– Easy cleaning of the container
For powders that are difficult to fluidize
Do you need to economically process powders with a tendency to separation during fluidization? OptiFlex Pro S is your best choice!
– Unique stirrer system with 18 litre hopper capacity
– Processing of powders with poor fluidization capability
– Preventing the separation of powders
– Processing of small quantities without any loss
– Complete emptying of remaining powder
OptiFlex Pro CFor Lab use
Do you want to coat small batches or samples? Your solution is the OptiFlex Pro C with self-fluidizing application cup.
– Perfectly suited for small powder quantities
– Self-fluidizing application cup (optionally 150 ml or 500 ml)
– Processes powder quantities from 20 g to 250 g
– The application cup can be easily combined with every coating unit
OptiFlex Pro LFor small batches
Do you carry out lab applications or quality tests? The OptiFlex Pro L unit is the perfect solution for lab use and quality control.
– Fluidized powder hopper
– 4 litre hopper volume
– Removable powder hopper
– Easy cleaning
OptiFlex Pro WThe universal solution
For upgrades, to be mounted on booth walls or at your production site: OptiFlex Pro W can be integrated in any existing surrounding.
– Its bracket can be mounted on any powder booth
– Takes the powder from fluidized hoppers or original powder box
More from Air Power: Gema Optiflex Pro Demo
More About Gema: Gema Powder Coating
Source: Gema Manual Equipment and Guns
In this video, two of Air Power’s application specialists Travis Stirewalt and Eddie Rhodes discuss the things you need to take into consideration when choosing where to buy your powder coating equipment. Air Power shows our true dedication to supporting the needs of our customer base by not only distributing industrial equipment, but also offering repair services in-house and in the field, engineering services for integrated solutions and over 50 years of industry experience. Contact us today to find out how we can help Powder Coat like a Pro!
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Twitter: @Air_Power_Inc
