HVLP Paint saving

Low Over-Spray Saves You $$$

Maybe you have noticed, the price of coatings rises every year. That’s why the right choice of spray equipment becomes absolutely critical. It is really very simple. If you spray expensive coating out in the air and not on the surface of your project, you are blowing your money away. It makes you work environment hard to breath and adds to the cost of your work. So choosing Apollo True HVLP turbines and guns that offer 80% to 90% transfer efficiency immediately saves you 50% to 60% on coatings. You will be amazed at how precisely coatings can be applied – they go exactly where you want, not where you don’t.

Test Results Prove Efficiency

One way to test the efficiency of a spray system is to run laboratory tests. The technician puts an accurately measured amount of coating in the gun and the cup. Then the coating is sprayed on a piece of metal. When the coating dries, it is scraped off the metal and weighed. The cup and the coating and the scraped off material are compared to the original, pre-spraying, weight and the percent of efficiency is calculated.

These are the tests that California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) conducted on Apollo Sprayers equipment. Keep in mind that California air quality standards are the highest in the nation. When the results were in from the SCAQMD it turned out that Apollo exceeded all of the established standards – 80% to 90% transfer efficiency.

High Volume Low Pressure (HVLP) means exactly that. A turbine generates a high volume of air at very low pressure. The high volume of air meets the liquid material (coating) and is carried in the form of tiny atomized particles to the surface being sprayed. The particles land on the project and a smooth coating is formed. Because there is so much air traveling through the air passages of the gun, the air passages in the spray gun need to be larger than on a conventional high pressure gun. All HVLP guns that use a turbine as a source of air are “True HVLP.” A conversion gun is a spray gun that works off a compressor, converting the high pressure air into high volume air. Here are the RULES that govern both HVLP Spray Guns and conversion guns.

• An HVLP Spray Gun cannot use more than 10 psi at the air cap.
• An HVLP Spray Gun must produce a minimum transfer efficiency (MTE) of 65%.

The challenge to the engineer is to create a conversion gun that will obey the rules and still replicate the performance of a turbine HVLP spray gun. By expanding the compressed air to duplicate the airflow performance of air generated by a turbine the coating is atomized and sprays just as a turbine HVLP gun.

The Apollo AtomiZer (Model 7500) can work off a turbine or a compressor. It is a TrueHVLP spray gun. The AtomiZer has one port at the bottom of the gun and comes with two hose connectors: one for a turbine hose and one for a compressor hose. A turbine produces air at a low psi and no conversion is necessary. When the high psi air from the compressor meets the large air passages in the spray gun, the psi drops, the coating is atomized and reaches the surface in a mist of high volume, low pressure air. Popular Woodworking Magazine tested the AtomiZer and wrote:

“Apollo has always made excellent spray equipment that has performed well in our tests. But the company’s new 7500 line of premium HVLP guns is head and shoulders better than the guns we’ve tested and used for the last 11 years. We’ve been testing the A7500QT AtomiZer Quick-Release Cup Gun with an HVLP turbine and have been impressed not only with the workmanship and controls, but with the astonishingly small amount of overspray generated by the gun. …There is little doubt this is the best HVLP gun we’ve seen in a long time.”

We’ve prepared a useful checklist of features and benefits to help you make an informed choice.

 

Feature	Benefit
2, 3, 4 or 5 stage motor	More stages mean more power. More power means greater access to higher viscosity coatings
Lightweight Hose	Less operator Fatigue
Sure flow lined hose	Enhances airflow by absence of inner ridges
Multiple air vents	Cools the motor and increases motor longevity
Quick change airfilters and pre-filters	Ensures cleaner unrestricted air all the time. Reduces motor wear
Docking station	Holds gun safely for storage or transportation
Multiple guns capacity	More powerful machines allow multiple users
Precision pressure control system (PPCS)	Displays atomizing pressure that us accurate to 0.10 PSI, controls motor speed, voltage and amperage worldwide. Adjusts automatically for altitude and barometric pressure, assuring precise atomizing pressure anywhere in the world
Precision FreeFlo® Filter warning LED	Indicates when a filter is restricted
Rugged Steel case	Proper space around the motor, keeps motor cool
Marine grade stainless steel gun parts	Longer lasting parts, no chance of interactions with coatings
Color coated air caps	Easy to identify for quick changes
No "o" rings	Our tolerances are so precise that we don’t need troublesome and frequent changing “o” rings.
Lightweight aluminum pressure die cast gun body	Easy on the finishers, balanced for comfort