"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
We have found from arm to arm the boards are actually NOT centered on any of our M&R Presses both auto and manual. The variance is over 1/8 inch in one direction. This happens with both the M&R boards and the Action Engineering boards.Also, lock/unlock/lock/repeat a board and watch it shift a bit This happens on our older press 12C 3-4 years old, 14C 1.5 years old, and a new (few months) 8/4 manual.I am not aware how to make our boards actually center on the arms..... To where the center of the board is centered on the arm.....So, you are not alone.
Damn.... that trick for adjustment will work for a manual press....But I just realized it does not work for an auto press.... I got all excited and missed that part.So.How do we center pallets to the arms on an Auto press? I have a Sportman 12c that is 4/5 years old and a Sportsman EXG 14c that is 1 1/2 years old.The 1/4 inch off center happened on the 12c.....
Quote from: Colin on June 08, 2014, 11:55:17 PMWe have found from arm to arm the boards are actually NOT centered on any of our M&R Presses both auto and manual. The variance is over 1/8 inch in one direction. This happens with both the M&R boards and the Action Engineering boards.Also, lock/unlock/lock/repeat a board and watch it shift a bit This happens on our older press 12C 3-4 years old, 14C 1.5 years old, and a new (few months) 8/4 manual.I am not aware how to make our boards actually center on the arms..... To where the center of the board is centered on the arm.....So, you are not alone.Dont focus on getting the center of the board to the center of the arm....focus on getting the center of the line up clamp (with the rollers) center to the pallet....to do this:FIRST: Get the twist out of the board as I mentioned in an ealier post...you need the pallet true/parallel to the arm.SECOND: You need to have a frame in EXACT position and this can be achieved by zeroing out all of the registration knobs..and with the tri loc and an 23 x 31 aluminum frame (any frame would work but i have aluminum frames)...the tri loc puts the frame in a "TRUE" position in the press......put a centerline down the exact middle of the screen mesh..I used a finely sharpened lead pencil......drop this "true" screen down onto your pallet which has a center line down its exact middle.....if the two lines (lead pencil center line on screen & pallet center line) do not line up, then loosen the alignment clamp (with the rollers) and tap the alignment clamp with a rubber mallet in the direction it has to go,,,once lines match then tighten the alignment clamp.THIRD: Lift up screen...swing the next pallet over...repeat from the top.
When u drop the head down the bottom of the head slips into an alignment piece on the arm....its what aligns the head to the arm to keep the head stationary....it has 2 rollers on each side of it....each arm has one....you cant miss it.
Maybe I over looked it in the thread but the reg gates and rollers have nothing to do with the image shift on the pallets. Rockers your problem is if you have a 3 color design the reg stays in from pallet to pallet but the image moves where it lands on the pallet, in other words on one it might be 3mm from the right edge and on another 1mm from the right edge?The gates adjust how the three colors would regester, again in other words if you had a large cross hair on three screen and wanted them to each land exactly on top of each other. Print red then black and last white and the black was off to the right you would adjust the gate bearings to move the black over to be dead nuts on to the other colors. 244 said it earlier measure from the center of the end pallet adjustment bolt to the next. This measurement between each of the four bolts should be the same. If not you have to loosen the pallet arms and move them until they are all equal. If you do this I would not touch arm one so you have a constant to go back to. In theory if you measure each arm and adverage the measurement this should be your target number. If for example the distance between 1&2 is 40cm and 2&3 is 44cm and 3&4 is 38cm and lastly 4&1 is 47cm there is the problem. The average is 42.25cm which would be your target number between any two pallet arms. Keep in mind +/- 1mm on this measurement should not be an issue at the end of the pallet arm and may equate to 0.005mm on the pallet shift. In a extreme case, maybe something got bent or damaged you may have to shim one side of the pallet arm to get them all equal. Also keep on mind like mentioned above make sure everything is where it is supposed to be. Pallet arm one in location one same with the screen holders. Autos are done basically the same way but IMO easier to check and adjust because you can use a print head to measure everything off of once they are set.
Three bolts used to adjust the pallets on each arm, use the front one as your reference point. In relationship to the pallet it is the center. If the distance from pallet arm to pallet arm from that reference point is different like mentioned before that is the problem.