Industrial Oven

Paint Cure Oven Types

TKS' most common type of industrial oven is a paint oven for curing coatings on vehicles, parts, or other components. Our paint ovens typically have a continuous conveyor running through, and have been used in several different industries, including: Automotive, Aerospace, Heavy Trucks, Motorcycle, ATVs/UTVs, Parts suppliers, and other vehicle-related manufacturing industries.

There are several different varieties of industrial paint oven:

1. E-coat Oven: The first oven in a paint shop is the E-Coat Oven. Also known as the ED, PTED, or ELPO oven. After the Electro-coat is applied by submerging the parts in the E-coat tank, the parts are rinsed and sent through the E-coat bake oven to dry and cure. The E-coat oven is the hottest oven in the paint shop at temperatures of ~350°F. The Electrocoat paint is held at temperature for 20 minutes where it cross-links and hardens. E-Coat is a water-based paint, so there's very low amounts of VOC in the E-coat oven, but it does tend to create smoke at high temperatures when the E-Coat drips off onto the hot oven surface. Oven air turnover and exhaust is required to keep temps up and smoke down. An air pollution abatement system like a Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) may be needed to control the amount of smoke.
2. Sealer Oven: The second type of oven is the Sealer Oven which is the only paint oven that does not cure a paint coating layer. Instead, the sealer oven is used to dry and cure the polymer-based sealer applied to the seams of the vehicle to make it water-tight.
3. Primer Oven: The primer oven is used to cure the primer layer of paint, which coating be liquid sprayed or powder coat primer. The primer oven is optional and is not used in a 3-wet paint process where the primer, basecoat, and clearcoat layers are applied after sealer oven and then cured together.
4. Drying Oven: The dry-off oven is optional often not used. It is only used when the primer coat is wet sanded, rinsed, and dried before applying the base and clear topcoats.
5. Heated Flash Off (HFO): Heated Flash-off tunnels or HFOs are essentially small ovens that only heat up to 160-180°F to dehydrate the outer layer of waterborne paint layer before applying the next liquid spray layer. The HFO is not needed for a solvent-borne paint, instead an ambient temperature flash off tunnel may be used. Two HFOs are used in a 3-wet paint booth process, between prime and base coat booths, and between base and clear coat spray booths.
6. Top Coat Oven: The final and most important oven, it finishes the final paint cure, determining the finish quality that all customers will see. If there's no primer oven, as in a 3-wet process, then the Top Coat oven is responsible for fully drying and curing all three layers of primer, base coat, and clear coat. The topcoat oven is almost always an indirect-fired oven with heat exchanger to preserve the color integrity of the base coat and color coat layers.

TKS manufacturers industrial ovens for large-scale manufacturing applications like Automotive and Aerospace. TKS builds batch ovens, drying ovens, industrial ovens, paint ovens, cure ovens, and more.

Other Types of Industrial Ovens

1. Cure Oven: typically used for parts curing. The material can be a composite like carbon fiber, a ceramic, a powder, or plastic resin. During the curing process, the part or coating will harden. Also called a heat-treatment oven.
2. Drying Oven: drying ovens or dry-off ovens are used to remove moisture from the surface of an object. Drying ovens typically operate at a lower temperature, around 180-220°F. Can be used to remove water-based liquids or solvent-based liquids. Dry-off ovens are often used after a vehicle (or parts) wash/rinse cycle, when they need to be dried fully before the painting or coating process.
3. Baking Oven: A baking oven typically combines the dry-off and cure functions, where the items to be baked are first dehydrated or the solvent flashes off, and then a chemical reaction takes place (polymer cross-linking, etc). Baking ovens are also used for food production and cooking or roasting.
4. Infrared (IR) or Radiant Oven: This type of oven uses radiant heat energy to heat up the air and the parts inside the oven. Contrary to a convection oven, it may not use any air circulation. This helps reduce the amount of dirt and debris that may get stirred up and land on the vehicle or part. The first zone(s) or heat-up zones of a continuous oven are often IR or radiant zones to help reduce the amount of dirt that hits the paint while the outer layer is still wet.
5. Batch Oven: A batch oven is a small oven that heats up and cools down in discrete phases. The parts or items to be heated are wheeled in on an oven cart, the door is shut and the oven is turned on. The parts heat up and are held at temperature inside the batch oven for the specified time, say 20 minutes, then the oven is turned off, opened up and allowed to cool. Once cooled, the parts may be rolled out and the process starts again. Batch ovens are used for low production rate processes. The batch oven is in direct contract to the continuous oven.
6. Continuous Oven: parts, vehicles, food, equipment, whatever is being heated, is transported through the oven on a conveyor. This entering and exiting of the oven happens continuously as the oven stay at temperature in each zone. As the parts are transported through the oven, they heat up, hold, and cool down in the same heating phases of the batch oven. The continuous oven is used for high production rates. The oven may be made as long as is necessary to support the conveyor speed and the desired production rate.
7. Post-Oven Cooling Tunnel: Depending on the production rate, after the exit of each oven, there may be a cooling tunnel which blows cold air to cool the parts and/or bodies before their next process step. The cooling tunnel is optional depending on plant layout and production rate. Most process steps that involve a human/manual process or involve paint application will have a minimum temperature of ~50°C or ~120°F for worker safety and for ideal paint appearance. If the parts don't have enough time to cool down to those temperature via ambient air temperatures, then a cooling tunnel is used.

Fuel source: Most ovens are gas-fired, but there are some electric heater driven ovens. Typically gas-fired ovens are much cheaper to operate, so electric ovens are only used where natural gas is not available and propane is too expensive or not readily available.