CeraCode: Individual part marking in press hardening
CeraCode® is an integrated solution consisting of temperature-resistant ink, industrial printers, scanners and an intelligent data processing concept. CeraCode® enables efficient and quickly implementable solutions for component marking in hot forming and offers customers the opportunity to optimize processes and reduce quality costs by linking material and production data.
Description
The core element of the CeraCode® process is the use of a high-temperature resistant ink. The inorganic materials used in the ink are insensitive to aggressive ambient conditions even at high temperatures. The CeraCode® marking can be printed as a DataMatrix code on various materials. The current generation of inks is optimized for use on the aluminum-silicon protective layer of press-hardened sheets in the body shop of the automotive industry. It exhibits high contrast and high resistance to mechanical influences even after baking.
Industrial drop-on-demand or thermal inkjet printers are used to apply the machine-readable code. The print image can be generated with up to 32 parallel nozzles. The ink is fixed in the oven as a sub-process of the hot forming process at over 900°C. Thanks to an integrated, intelligent concept for data acquisition and processing, component and process data can be linked and evaluated.
Advantages
- Temperature-resistant, individual and machine-readable marking for process temperatures up to over 1000°C
- Easy integration into existing and new systems
- Seamless process data acquisition and linking of component and production data
- Immediate reduction of scrap, sorting and quality costs
Specification
The CeraCode® solution can be integrated into both existing and new plants. For this purpose, Senodis supplies individual integration concepts that can be tailored to each production line. In addition to pure integration, the positioning, shape and type of coding can also be customized. In addition, intelligent concepts can minimize manual handling steps during operation.
The high-temperature ink used was specially developed for the press curing of sheet metal parts in the automotive sector. The use of inorganic materials ensures both permanent resistance after high-temperature processes and high contrast and machine readability of the individual component codes.
The drop-on-demand printing process is one of the most robust industrial printing processes. With up to 32 nozzles, codes can be applied to components dot by dot. Depending on the size of the DataMatrix code, over 100 numeric characters can be integrated into the code.
The marking solution has local data recording and data storage. Integration into the customer’s IT environment can be easily implemented via standard interfaces (Profinet, OPC UA, Modbus TCP). Further individual customer requirements for the implementation of IT solutions can be addressed with the resources of Senodis.
An intelligent and predictive maintenance concept can minimize manual handling steps around the marking system. Senodis also offers individual service packages tailored to the specific needs of customers. Downtimes are reduced to a minimum thanks to an optimized design of the marking system and simple options for quickly replacing components in the event of a fault.
In cooperation with
Relevant for the following use cases
Application example: Production start-up (testing of start-up parts)
When the furnace is put back into operation after a planned or unplanned downtime, the parts that leave the furnace first are especially tested and often sorted out. Senodis ensures that start-up parts can be reused directly, if necessary, and ...
Application example: Internal quality complaint
Tests during series production are elementary pillars of quality assurance. From time to time, specification deviations occur that call the component quality into question. To avoid mixing with good parts and to be able to precisely isolate ...
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