ENGS 89/90 Reports

Year of Graduation

2025

Project Advisor

Trent Staats

Instructor

Solomon Diamond

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

Anodization is a crucial process of the aluminum manufacturing process that makes aluminum products more durable while also enabling customization with colored anodized dyes. However, for small scale aluminum manufacturers, anodizing is largely inaccessible. Existing solutions either involve outsourcing to large automated warehouses or manually anodizing by hand, both of which suffer from prohibitive disadvantages. Large warehouses are automated but, because they require shipping products and require batches of parts far greater than normal for small scale manufacturers, they have long lead times and are prohibitively costly. Conversely, anodizing by hand is faster and cheaper, but the manual labor required is time intensive and risks unnecessary exposure to hazardous chemicals. The Small Scale Anodizing Gantry takes the best of both worlds by enabling automated anodization in-house. By racking up to 6 kg of small parts and starting an anodizing sequence, owners of the gantry can consistently and safely anodize their manufactured products while working on other more higher value, manual tasks. The gantry is initially programmed with GCODE using a custom designed calibration program called the Anodizing Program and combined with the Open Builds driving software to control it. Its mechanical structure consists of readily available T-Slotted framing with custom gantry plates and a Z-Axis designed to handle an aluminum rack and power supply for anodizing. In collaboration with project sponsors at Lost Nation Research and Development, this gantry is meant to be integrated with their temperature control system that regulates the baths of each chemical in the anodizing process.

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