The variety of road marking materials and their application technologies allow solving many issues arising in the field of road traffic safety. However, in this regard road marking companies have to keep in their arsenal a large number of equipment that supports the required technology and capacity. This problem is particularly acute for equipment that, while operating on one type of material, applies markings using different technologies. For example, this applies to material such as thermoplastic.
As of today, two technologies for applying thermoplastic are widely used in the market of road marking machines: for thick-layer marking – using an extruder with a screw pump (extrusion), for thin-layer marking – using guns that spray plastic with pumps of higher productivity and pressure (spray technology). Due to the difference in the design of working elements, as of today we have two completely different machines for thick-layer and thin-layer marking with thermoplastic, which can’t replace each other. And of course, taking these circumstances into account, the market generates requests for creation of universal solutions.
To solve this problem, we have outlined a range of issues that we are to solve within the framework of the project for development of a universal product:
use a common pump for both technologies;
installation of the pump on the machine should ensure replacement of the marking unit from the right side to the left side, and vice versa, without the need to dismantle the pump;
design of the marking unit fastening should provide easy change of its position “left side of the machine” – “right side of the machine”;
quick changeover between line types and application technologies.
Having analyzed all questions arisen and wishes of potential customers, we launched a product development of a new universal marking unit for thermoplastics, which can apply both thick-layer and thin-layer markings in accordance with the current standards.
The material is supplied from the pump which is located on the thermoplastic container and is not required to be dismantled to change position of the marking unit; thermoplastic is fed through flexible heated lines which make it easy to change the position of the marking unit itself. Moving the marking unit from the left to the right side, and vice versa, does not require much effort and time, since we have designed the unit attachment mechanism allowing for moving in the transverse direction.
The universal marking unit can be adapted for installation on almost any thermoplastic road marking machine.
At the present moment, the universal marking unit is at the testing stage during which we will be able to test out all the declared technical specifications.