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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: Inprint on March 22, 2015, 05:15:18 PM

Title: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 22, 2015, 05:15:18 PM
Hi everyone
First post, so much good info on this forum!

We just setup our "new" used 2004 all air 6c/8s m&r sportsman

It's our first auto, got everything level, first jobs went surprisingly pretty well.

Couple questions, even after reading up on these issues on this forum:

Were having trouble clearing the top of the image, were burning our image about 7" down from top of screen.

Been reading here about deflection of pallet/head.

We have our choppers set at "1", and are seeing quite a bit of movement on the print head and pallet.

We read somewhere on this forum that the choppers should be set all the way open, or around 1.5, but it looks like that would literally bust through our screen the squeegee would come way too low.

Is that correct? Choppers all the way open?

We're thinking we could burn our art lower on screen and move pallets in a bit, but still unsure about the ideal chopper settings.

Are we missing something? We had our pressure regulators set at about 45psi and still had to double stroke, sometimes 2 whole cycles, to get the screen to completely clear and give a nice smooth white.

We're using brand new statics at around 30 netwons.

Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: jvanick on March 22, 2015, 05:41:50 PM
First off.. congrats!

A few things to check... 45 psi sounds good for the print pressure...

Check your off contact settings...

Check the leveling on your pallets.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 22, 2015, 06:13:25 PM
Thanks for the reply man
We leveled our pallets best we could for first time, using the sportsman manual and online videos, I think we did a good job.

As for off-contact, were at minimum off contact on central adjustment of machine, and setup our screen holders at about a nickel height on each corner.

We're a little confused as to how to set the chopper stops
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: jvanick on March 22, 2015, 06:27:41 PM
Max the print choppers out... as in if there's no squeegee in them it should go as low as possible.  Or said another way, at rest the squeegee stop should be in the highest position.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: dirkdiggler on March 22, 2015, 06:29:58 PM
yes, max them out, if you are gonna bust your screen with that setting, you have WAY TO MUCH off contact.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 22, 2015, 06:32:08 PM
That's what we'd read on another thread here, but at that setting on our press it looks like the squeegee is going to go right through the screen! Looks WAY too low!

Too much off contact eh?

Guess it's back to square one...
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: 244 on March 22, 2015, 06:44:27 PM
That's what we'd read on another thread here, but at that setting on our press it looks like the squeegee is going to go right through the screen! Looks WAY too low!

Too much off contact eh?

Guess it's back to square one...
not all models have the squeegee pressure adjustment on the front of the head. If it does start at 30psi and knobs all the way up
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 22, 2015, 06:47:31 PM
We do have the squeegee pressure regulators.

The maxed out at choppers is where were a little stumped, guess we need to lower our screen holders quite a bit, but we HAD set em using nickels at every corner of pallet #1 for off contact adjustment, so a bit stumped why our screens seem so high in relation to the choppers.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Binkspot on March 22, 2015, 06:58:17 PM
Just a thought it may not be the machine but the ink, angle, dull squeegee, speed, etc.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 22, 2015, 07:02:24 PM
Oh yeah, I'm not ruling anything out!
Just trying to make sure we at least have machine set up close to right.

We put brand new triple duro squeegee rubber, been printing at different speeds, pretty much near 0 angle on new winged flood bars, and minimal angle on squeegee to start.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: 3Deep on March 22, 2015, 07:18:31 PM
What is your screen tension?  white ink is always a monster to print in one stroke from a cold start, once it warms up a bit it prints pretty nice.  I can speak from experience of printing white ink thru low mesh screens and yep it's tough and double stroking is about the only way your going to get a nice print on low tension.  Hey welcome to the jungle here :)

darryl
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: jvanick on March 22, 2015, 07:29:04 PM
He mentioned 30n above... my suggestion is to try more angle on the print stroke, and slower print stroke.

With air heads, you need to slow the print stroke due to the acceleration of the building of the air in the cylinder.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: 3Deep on March 22, 2015, 07:37:19 PM
He mentioned 30n above... my suggestion is to try more angle on the print stroke, and slower print stroke.

With air heads, you need to slow the print stroke due to the acceleration of the building of the air in the cylinder.

Your right I didn't read the complete post, and I totally agree with an all air press the print stroke can be a little different each print as I've learned to deal with on my press.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Frog on March 22, 2015, 07:43:43 PM
You 30n static screens are worthy of their own thread.  ;D
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: jvanick on March 22, 2015, 07:54:54 PM
I've had brand new 156 frames come in at 30n... they settle in at 25-27n.  I believe they were stretched by Xenon.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 22, 2015, 07:58:21 PM
We had 40 new frames delivered the same day the machine arrived.
We measured right about 30n before throwing them on the press.
I know that statics are not the holy grail, but they WERE just about as good a tension as possible for statics is all I was saying.
Believe me we're excited to slowly transfer to rollers, about to pick up a few used ones to start rolling into production.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: jvanick on March 22, 2015, 08:10:44 PM
We print 60% static 160s and 40% rollers with 160S and 225S.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 22, 2015, 08:36:22 PM
That's the direction Id like to move in too.
We're in Montreal though, not many used newmans available here.
Or qualified auto techs apparently, we've been asking around, could really use a day of checkup and training
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: 3Deep on March 22, 2015, 10:47:19 PM
Inprint, if your having trouble with the squeegee hydroplaning you might have some weak print cylinders you did say this press is a 2004 all air. I could be very wrong on this just trying to toss my 2 cents in, I know M&R is a pretty good company but it's still a machine and parts do ware over time.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 23, 2015, 07:03:58 AM
Thanks for all the replies!
This forum is awesome

3D deep, the seller threw in some new cylinders he had in the shop, so I installed them in print head one and 4 when I setup the machine, those seemed like the oldest, most beat up ones.

I'm going in this AM, will set all choppers to wide open and recheck everything before printing anything today, still trying to find a local tech that can train us, I didn't expect to get amazing prints right away, but certainly want to make progress asap.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: 244 on March 23, 2015, 07:22:32 AM
That's the direction Id like to move in too.
We're in Montreal though, not many used newmans available here.
Or qualified auto techs apparently, we've been asking around, could really use a day of checkup and training
we have a full time tech in Toronto.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 23, 2015, 06:06:39 PM
First off thanks for all the advice yesterday!

We came in this AM, opened all choppers to max, lowered pressure to 30psi.

We burned our designs about 2" Lower on screen, slowed down our squeegee and increase angle, and we got MUCH better results.

We still had to double stroke to completely clear the screen, but kept pressure at 35psi or so, much lower than the close to 50psi we needed before. The top of our image was clearing just fine.

We haven't reduced our white at all, but after a couple of strokes the ink flowed fine.

We'd love to clear on one stroke, but Im starting to get the impression that might be tricky until we have some rollers with higher tension.
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: alan802 on March 23, 2015, 07:11:37 PM
What mesh counts are you having to double stroke with and what colors? 
Title: Re: All air sportsman- chopper settings
Post by: Inprint on March 23, 2015, 07:16:27 PM
So far we've only used 156 and 225's
Mostly white on blacks and some colors on white tees
We coat 1+2