Shorted KV

If KV = kilovolts (??), this must be rather entertaining.

Or terrifying. One of my favorite videos.

Yes it is kilovolts.

Are you doing some form of EPD?

Sounds like your pieces may not be conductive, or you are not cleaning the conveyer well, thus losing the ground connection.

Some paints have a fairly high amount of chromium; that might have something to do with it, but I would tend to think not.

Thanks for your reply, were not using EPD, as what i've said we are spraying paint using ABB robotics which are computer assisted painting. We are painting plastic parts for automotive and supplying all ACURA and Honda models including Cadillac and Buick which are all high end cars. Our line are conveyor type, where in maintaining the grounding are always high priority as the plant has hired a cleaning company where they do cleaning every end of the shift.

The shorting of KV happened only on metallic color not on solid color like white, red, black, yellow etc. any idea on this.

Only that you should check the seals between the painting area and where the High Voltage resides. Without knowing at all the spacial geometries and barriers of the electrodes and the paint spray I cannot hazard any more of a guess. It seems I have to ask the obvious question though. If the high voltage is not used in EPD to attract the paint droplets, what is it doing in a painting area?

Is the material being applied water born or solvent? Water born has a tendency to allow shorting of components much more easily as you can imagine. But, I also wounder why you have the high voltage in this location, when its is not needed to transfer droplets to substrate.

If I had to make a guess, it would be that metallic paints produce small airborne conductive particles that short out your KV and result in a fireworks display. Isolating the source of these particles from the KV with a good filter might improve your operation.