Line speed and curing oven length calculator
Enter the parts you need per shift, how many hang on one hanger and how far apart the hangers sit. The tool gives the conveyor speed, the dwell the powder needs, the heated length of the curing tunnel and the dryer at the same speed, once for a standard powder at 180 °C and once for a low-cure powder at 150 °C.
Result
Method
Parts per hour divided by parts per hanger gives hangers per hour. Hangers per hour multiplied by the hanger pitch gives the conveyor travel per hour, divided by 60 for metres per minute.
Dwell time in the curing tunnel is heat-up plus hold plus margin. Heat-up is the time the part's steel needs to reach the cure temperature; hold is what the powder supplier's data sheet specifies at that temperature; the margin covers heavier hangers and the oven's temperature spread. Heated length equals line speed multiplied by dwell.
For the low-cure column the heat-up time is scaled by the smaller temperature rise (130 K instead of 160 K from a 20 °C shop) and the hold is the value you enter for the low-cure powder.
Assumptions and defaults
- Heat-up minutes by steel thickness are editable. The defaults are taken from published dwell-time ranges (a few minutes for thin sheet, up to half an hour for heavy castings).
- Hold time defaults to 10 minutes at 180 °C and 15 minutes at 150 °C, typical values for polyester powders; your supplier's data sheet governs.
- The check against our 20 m tunnel uses the documented line: a 20 m curing tunnel behind a 10 m dryer, run at 1.0 to 1.5 m/min.
What the result does not tell you
The tool sizes the heated length. It does not size the entry and exit vestibules, the cooling stretch after the oven, or the conveyor path inside a U-turn oven, all of which add to the footprint. Those come with the layout.
Questions this tool answers
Short answers; the tool gives the numbers for your case.
How do you calculate the required line speed for a powder coating line?
Parts per hour divided by parts per hanger gives hangers per hour. Multiply by the hanger pitch in metres and divide by 60. A line that must coat 600 parts per hour, two per hanger, at a 0.5 m pitch runs at 2.5 m/min.
How long should the curing oven be for a given line speed?
Heated length equals line speed times dwell. Dwell is the time the steel needs to reach cure temperature plus the hold the powder data sheet asks for, plus a margin. At 1 m/min and a 20 minute dwell the heated length is 20 m.
Does a low-cure powder shorten the oven?
Yes, or it lets the same oven run faster. Curing at 150 °C instead of 180 °C shortens heat-up by about a fifth; the hold time is the supplier's figure. The tool shows both columns so the saving is visible in metres or in m/min.
Have the result checked against your parts
Send the result with a photograph of the parts and the hall sketch. We reply with a sized proposal.