Solution

Email:cynthiazheng@dpxlaser.com
Address: Room 601, Building 4, Huidongsheng Industrial Park, No. 1028 Guangqiao Avenue, Yulu Community, Guangming District, Shenzhen (South Gate)

In the rubber tire manufacturing process, the tire mold is the critical tool that determines the tread pattern, traction, and overall product quality. After repeated vulcanization cycles, residual rubber, release agents, and other contaminants accumulate in the tread grooves. If not properly removed, these residues can easily lead to defects in the finished tires, resulting in a high rate of rejects. Consequently, regular mold cleaning has become an indispensable step in tire production facilities. Traditional cleaning methods such as sandblasting, dry‑ice blasting, and chemical soaking are increasingly unable to meet the modern demands for high‑quality, environmentally friendly manufacturing.
 

Traditional cleaning processes suffer from numerous industry‑wide pain points: sandblasting readily wears down mold cavities, compromising dimensional accuracy and shortening tool life; dry‑ice blasting fails to thoroughly remove residual adhesive in deep grooves, generates significant noise and dust, and consumes substantial energy; chemical cleaning requires large quantities of chemicals, incurs high waste‑liquid treatment costs, and poses environmental risks; moreover, conventional methods necessitate the disassembly and reassembly of molds weighing hundreds of kilograms, resulting in lengthy cycle times and heavy labor requirements.

To address the aforementioned industry challenges, Horizon Laser has launched a fully automated laser cleaning workstation for tire molds, integrating 3D visual recognition, robotic motion control, and laser cleaning technology. This system enables non‑destructive, fully automated cleaning of tire‑mold tread blocks and side plates, helping rubber‑tire manufacturers achieve a green, intelligent manufacturing upgrade.
 

The workstation employs a 1080 nm industrial pulsed laser with a flat-top pulse profile. Leveraging the distinct laser absorption characteristics of the substrate and contaminants, residual adhesive and carbon deposits rapidly heat up, vaporize, and detach, while the metal mold substrate remains virtually unaffected by the energy input. This enables non‑contact, selective cleaning, achieving 100% removal even in complex, hard‑to‑reach areas such as the roots of patterns, all without compromising the mold’s original dimensions or pattern accuracy.

The complete workstation integrates nine core modules: a laser cleaning system, a water-cooling system, a robotic system, 3D visual positioning, a servo‑driven motion platform, dust extraction and purification, safety protection, and monitoring. It features a dual‑station layout: one station performs mold cleaning while the other simultaneously handles mold loading and unloading, significantly reducing idle time and boosting overall production efficiency. The equipment is easy to operate; with a single button press, the 3D vision system automatically scans and identifies the mold, generates a dedicated cleaning path, and the robot drives the laser head to achieve full‑area cleaning. A built‑in dust collection system simultaneously captures fumes and particulates, ensuring a clean workshop with zero emissions. Moreover, the entire mold can be cleaned without disassembly.
 

The equipment boasts a distinct core competitive advantage: it is equipped with a 3D visual positioning system that automatically identifies molds of different models and generates cleaning paths, eliminating the need to customize process recipes for each tire type, with a mold‑recognition rate approaching 100%. Its proprietary flying‑scan algorithm boosts cleaning efficiency by 30–50% compared with conventional methods, reducing the time required to clean a single mold set to just 30–60 minutes. Moreover, its flat‑top beam delivers uniform energy, enabling micron‑level precision cleaning that can extend mold service life from three to five years, thereby lowering enterprises’ mold‑procurement costs.

Against the backdrop of the rubber tire industry’s transformation and upgrading, laser cleaning is reshaping tire mold‑cleaning processes.

 

The Horizon Laser Tire Mold Laser Cleaning Workstation, with its advantages of automation, non‑destructive operation, environmental friendliness, and high efficiency, provides tire manufacturers with a mature and comprehensive mold‑cleaning solution, helping the industry advance into a new era of green intelligent manufacturing.