The starting point
The shop applies wet paint in several booths and shifts, for automotive, rail, mechanical engineering and medical technology. Many variants, frequent changeovers, high demands on the surface. Until early 2026, experienced painters sprayed every part by hand inside the booth: good quality, but solvents in the air and results that depend on the person and the shift. And finding new painters got harder every year.
The goal: make the process stable and cut the time spent in the spray booth, without losing the painters’ know-how.
What we built
A Lesta painting robot on a carousel in an existing booth. Parts, booth geometry and the safety concept were agreed before delivery.
Four weeks, from the workshop to handover
- Week 1, in our workshop in Altstätten: pre-assembly with new arm plates, centered carousel arms and motors for axes 7 and 8.
- Week 2, on site from January 26, 2026: robot set up, mounted and secured, safety fences in place. Where the light barriers were planned, there was a door, so the customer put in a wall.
- Week 3, from February 2, 2026: the first test program runs, one week after arrival. Power, compressed air and network are connected, gun and material supply integrated, and painting runs under real conditions. A cable issue was fixed the next day.
- Week 4: the painters guide the robot along their paths on their own parts. It stores the movements as programs that anyone on the team can start. Handover on February 13, 2026, less than three weeks after arriving on site.
The result
The parts and the requirements are the same. The team loads the carousel, picks the program and checks from outside the booth. The robot makes the repetitive spray movements; the painters’ know-how is in the programs and runs on every shift. At the maintenance visit in July 2026 the robot was in very good condition. Since March 2026, a cleaning robot also sweeps the shop floors.
We revised this version on September 28, 2026: the company is no longer named, and it contains only details we can back up.
