BORBET, wheel plant in Thuringia

The situation

The plant casts aluminum wheels in these molds. Before casting, every mold has to be heated to about 200 degrees and sprayed with die coating, a layer between the mold and the casting. That was manual work, hot and heavy, in every shift. There was no standard robot for this job. The plant wanted a system it could later show to other sites as well.

What we built

A heavy-duty Lesta robot works at a carousel. At the first station a 3D scanner checks the position and shape of the mold, at the next one ring burners heat it to about 200 degrees, then the robot sprays the die coating. Add a roller conveyor with a lifting section and pneumatic loading, a dedicated extraction wall and aluminum heat shields. We tested mold segments in Altstätten beforehand. When the burners glowed too strongly at first, we mounted them further away, turned them and rerouted the cables; the gas and air fittings sit outside the spray zone so the system can be shut down safely in an emergency.

Built with

• Lesta MV A6 robot, heavy-duty version
• Heavy-duty carousel with stations for scanning, heating and coating
• 3D scanner for the position and shape of every mold
• Ring burners heating to about 200 degrees
• Roller conveyor with lifting section and pneumatic loading
• Extraction wall and aluminum heat shields
• SICK safety technology, CE documentation for the whole system

The result

In operation since July 2026 and in production today. The system heats, checks and coats the molds fully automatically. We trained about 20 of the plant’s employees in two shifts.