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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Shanarchy on February 06, 2015, 01:36:26 PM
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Are you using the Newman clamp adapters on your rollers? Do they make a difference?
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Never needed adapters for side clamps. I feel like it would be a big pain to get them in there. Front/rear may require them, depending on the clamp style and how the screens sit relative to the clamp. Just make sure the feet/clamps hit right over top the rollers.
They make a difference on some machines/clamp styles. We use them on the old Gauntlet. Not used on the newer Sportsman which has the big bar clamps but those aren't perfect either.
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Zoo, you had an Anatol manual before, right?
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Still do. It has those feet/pads and does fine to clamp the rollers. That Thunder registers up very well, often one small bump is all that's needed when the screens are pin locked in, it's better than either auto and I think the clamp feet/side clamps may be why.
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My thunder is a little older (purple model). Are your clamp feet metal? Or the newer plastic feet?
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They're metal. I think the first press they sent had more plastic on it. After the redesigns the new one came back with more metal it seems.
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For some reason I find screens coming out of registration, but I'm having trouble pin pointing what is causing it. It's a pretty nice press and the micros are great so it's not too bad getting it back in line, but it's still very frustrating. I'm trying to find some time to go through everything, but it doesn't seem to have anything loose.
When you say pin locked in, do you mean you use the Neman pin lock reg system?
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It's a manual, screens go out of registration if the wind blows :)
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It's a manual, screens go out of registration if the wind blows :)
I disagree! The Anatol holds it very well, so did the Rototex I scored as my first press. Hopkins, Chameleon or pretty much any press with the X-Y style micros and the droop plates all would pop out of reg for us.
Shanarchy, go look at the reg block or keel or whatever you call that metal thing on the bottom of the print heads. First, see if any of them are badly grooved/wore down. That was one problem with our Anatol manual is one of them wore down really fast v. the rest which have been ok.
Next, put each head into all stations and check the depth that the keel goes in between the bearings. If it's not getting in there enough to make positive contact with both bearings, there's the issue. It happens if you adjust the off contact up too high, design flaw making the keels that short.
From there, check each head/station and see if you can roll one of the bearings with finger pressure when the keel is in the bearings correctly. If you can, it's too loose and you need to adjust the eccentric bearing in on that head. There's a little more to this to do it right or what I would say is the best way. Feel free to PM me and I can call you if you need help.
And yes, we use the Newman pin lock system to affix all films to roller frames. We are transitioning away from the 30 odd 25x30 frames we have to all 23x31 at the moment so from there, most are locked in with a tri loc platen since our newer M&R press is not pin lock compatible. The 25" wide and often anything on the manual since it's a bit further away form the autos are locked in with the pin lock platen. I think both work about equally well. I haven't personally tri loc'd anything on the Anatol yet but the pin lock works very well on it. I'd say the tri loc is probably slightly better than the pin lock platen but both have a lot of flex to them.
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A lot of great info Zoo!
I just quickly to one print head and dropped it into all 8 registration gates. On some the bearings will not roll/finger spin when the print head is down. Some I can get them to roll.
Do I slightly loosen the bolt holding the bearing in, then tighten it back up while pushing the bearing closer to the center? They do not really seem like they were made to be adjusted.
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One of the bearings is eccentric, put a wrench on it and turn the wrench one way or the other to either go in or out towards the keel. You don't want to adjust it super tight just snug, you shouldn't quite be able to move it with your finger.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
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Thanks! It looks like the right bearing will move in and out when I loosen/tighten it.
I'm going to try to go through the press today from step 1 to see if I can eliminate the issue. It's a great press aside from that issue. Any tips on the best way to level the pallets? I'm not sure if I do it the right way or not.
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Our 8 color Rototex is rock solid, always has been. We've had a couple, and if needing a new manual someday, whatever it is would have to live up to that.
Steve
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Update:
The bearings, which create the registration gate seemed to have too wide of a gap on a few on the stations. Where if you dropped the head in place you could get it to wiggle a good amount. I fixed these (Thanks Zoo!)
I also took the base off of the wheels, which made it easy to move around if needed as I wasn't sure of the exact location (and laziness). I think this was adding a little flex to the press. I switched it to the actual feet, then leveled the base. Something I probably should have done on day one.
I don't think the screen clamping set up is causing the issue.
I do notice the pallets have a little wiggle to them. Not sure if it's because they are aftermarket pallets, or if the pallet locks are a little worn. But I never find myself adjusting the pallets, so I tightened the pallets locks (or whatever they are called) so everything is real tight and there is no pallet wiggle. If I need to swap a pallet I will have to loosen the bolt with a wrench before releasing the levels.Not a big deal, but I do wonder if there is a place I can order new ones on line.
I attempted to level the print heads and pallets. Which I did do before, but seemed to still be off. They are better, but definitely still off. Anyone have a youtube link to show you how to do this on a 4 point pallet system? It shouldn't be rocket science, but I am missing the point somewhere.
I found these links helpful and will share them with anyone else who buys a used manual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u44tatcE2wE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u44tatcE2wE)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rJJa8HktJo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rJJa8HktJo)
http://printwearmag.com/features/manual-press-calibration (http://printwearmag.com/features/manual-press-calibration)
*I don't view any of these as a fault to Anatol equipment. I bought this pressed used and was well aware it needed a bit of tuning up.
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We've had a Vastex, Chameleon and Sidewinder and holding registration has always been an issue. I suspect the registration issues with the Vastex had a lot to do with the rear clamps and auto sized screens and using the micros on it was much easier and predictable than the x/y style presses. It's very frustrating to come from an auto that has never lost registration in thousands of jobs to a manual that is hard to get registered and then it just pops out even when you try your best to not let it happen.
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You can buy the platen lock levers from anatol, should be in their parts store but check that you get the right ones for your machine, they seem to do a lot of revisions there and don't keep track of it, i.e., there may be two different parts from different casts but given one part #.
Offer's still open if you want to pm me and I can call or skype you and walk you through getting the press into parallel. With any manual that has adjustable off contact with "camber" you are basically going to get your platens all one one plane, the print heads in plane to the platens left/right or in the short direction of the screen and then you will need to adjust the front/rear or long direction of the screen almost every time you set the press up, depending. Presses with the camber adjustment just do not hold that adjustment very well given all the raising and lowering of the print heads, imho it's a poor design that is unfortunately used on a lot of machines.
Anyways, if you keep everything in close parallel your pre reg can start to really do it's thing, same goes for automatics.