Process and device for controlling a multiplicity of spray tools used in surface coating of vehicles or parts thereof

Arrangement for controlling a plurality of spray tools disposed at different stations in a coating line for vehicles or parts thereof being moved through the coating line;

• said arrangement comprising, in combination:
• a centralized control with stored program capability which releases setting magnitudes determining the paint throughput of each spray tool to respective actuators for the spray tools which, during coating, are moved by respective drives along paths whose beginning and end depends on signals from the centralized control with stored program capability;
• said centralized control with stored program capability further including means for transmitting path points to which the spray tools are to be moved in two or more axial directions of a cartesian system of coordinates and which path points are stored as set values with division between end points of a path segment or are determined by coarse interpolation from stored end path points of a path segment, via a serial bus to respective position controllers of which one each is allocated to a movement axis of a respective spray tool and each comprises a cascade speed control circuit as well as at least one microprocessor means for storing the respective transmitted set values destined for the respective position controller on an intermediate basis, for determining further path points between successive transmitted set points by a further fine interpolation from the respective stored set values transmitted on the bus, for using the determined further path points as set values as a basis for the position control of the respective spray device, and for calculating a difference from two successive transmitted respective set values and determining the speed of the respective drives by division of the respective said difference by the time interval of the transmission of these two successive set values.