American Auto presses - Multi, Rototex, Centurian

[ericheartsu]

We have a M&M Xpress, a step between the multi printer and the centurian, and we run rollers, with WB and Discharge all day on it!

Can it flood at rest?  pics?

i'm not sure what that means, but it can stay flooded if you choose.

[ZooCity]

Well, the multi's and our Tempo have this motion where the flood is in the back when they are in the up position, it floods on the way down, prints and then lifts back up with the screen un-flooded.  That's the big issue I have is the screens not being flooded. 

[ZooCity]

This video is long but you can see what I'm talking about here with the cycles of the print heads.  They rest in that up position with the screen open, un-flooded.  Unless there's a feature to get it to half cycle on the head it could be a no-go for wb.  Then again getting it to half cycle might not be impossible so long as it holds the screen high enough above the platen.

http://youtu.be/C3_THyNjh8Y

[ZooCity]

I found this video of someone printing discharge on one.

http://youtu.be/OdbGJEAeTGs

It appears they have it resting at the flood somehow.  I actually, I think, found the same press on digitsmiths old posts when I was hunting for pictures of the controls:
http://www.digitsmith.com/jumbo-american-multiprinter-15684.html

enemybender?  I recognize Patt Finn there.  Anyways, I emailed the dude via digitsmith to see if he might be down to show me the ways.  My guess is you just flip something around in there and you can get away with it because it's high enough over the platens as they index. 

I troubleshot doing this with the Tempo and no dice since there would be no room to load the flatstock with the head down that far but it would be a non-issue on the multi with open stations for loading/unloading.

[ebscreen]

I was able to set the heads on my Rototex 2 to stop in the flooded position. They (and I think the Multiprinters?)
use a cam with a roller switch to determine flood/squeegee position. It was as simple is loosening the
cam set screw and rotating until it was where I wanted it.

I bet you could do it on the Tempo, but there's that whole loading space issue. i am a bit surprised
that it's not possible though. Refresh my memory, are the screen up/down and carriage movement
controlled by one attachment from the motor?


I don't see why you couldn't print posters with one of these. I've heard of it being done. Single color only of course.
Not sure I would buy one (and the space it takes up) just for posters though.

[Sbrem]

On our old Filbar flat stock printer, if we wanted to flood so we can go to the head, then we'd kill the power before it started the print stroke. Barbaric, but perfectly effective.

Steve

[ZooCity]

Mixing up a couple threads here, one with the Tempo and one with these Arrow Multiprinters but same fundamentals. 

Refresh my memory, are the screen up/down and carriage movement
controlled by one attachment from the motor?
I don't see why you couldn't print posters with one of these. I've heard of it being done. Single color only of course.
Not sure I would buy one (and the space it takes up) just for posters though.

I believe they are controlled by one attachment.  It's really obvious on old cameos but I think the same is true on the tempo, I could be wrong. 

I got them for doing all variety of flatstock, including plastisol transfers but it's a no-go with the TW 5500 series in this climate.  That ink needs to be flooded at rest.  Textile WB inks are way more forgiving here.

eb, why single color only?  The Tempo looks like it would hold excellent registration with the front gate setup the way it is. 

Steve, we tried something similar with the Tempo, using the safety cage but it's too low at flood to get your hands under there and load a piece of stock. 

[ebscreen]

I was referring to single color on the Centurians or Rototexes. Is that
what you were asking about? Am I lost here? Where's my coffee cup?

[ZooCity]

Haha.  We have a Tempo and a Cameo in the house right now. 

I'm looking at buying an American Arrow Multi Printer 6/8. 

I was seeing about setting the heads to flood at rest on the Arrow, which like you said, is doable by adjusting the cam. 

We could probably do the same thing on the Tempo but no room for loading stock.   The trick works on the Arrow because it's still hovering above the platens just enough that they can swing around under there. 

Hope that makes more sense.  I need more coffee too.  Thought it would be beer-thirty by now but not even close. 

[ebscreen]

Perfectly clear, and correct on the Arrow. I just can't believe
the Tempo can't do it.

[ZooCity]

Perfectly clear, and correct on the Arrow. I just can't believe
the Tempo can't do it.

haha.  I think it can, the heads are almost identical to the arrow.  But that mechanical motion doesn't allow for a flood with the clamshell in the up position, which would be weird and sloppy anyhow, dragging ink uphill. I might be able to angle the flood just right and use oversized screens, place images very far back on the screen, so that the image is flooded but the screen is only halfway down, leaving room to load/unload.  Have to experiment a little more.

I heard back in the day that the solvent inks could be slowed with little or no limitations so this wasn't an issue but I wonder how people worked with this.  No matter how crazy fast I work on the tempo black TW 5500 locks into the screen.  It barely makes through a test print before dry in.  No real issues on the manual though where I'm flooding instantly after print. 

[ebscreen]

They had waterbased back then, and some of the solvent inks are worse for drying in than the TW is.
That's what I mean by I can't believe it won't stay in the flooded position with the screen up.

Maybe just keep it on zero dwell and uhhh, move real quick. Real quick.

[ZooCity]

They had waterbased back then, and some of the solvent inks are worse for drying in than the TW is.
That's what I mean by I can't believe it won't stay in the flooded position with the screen up.

Maybe just keep it on zero dwell and uhhh, move real quick. Real quick.

Yeah, I think it's weird too.  My understanding from hearsay is that you could mess with solvent inks to retard them far more than you can with WB...and let's be frank, WB is just a water bourne glycerin solvent ink. 

Tried moving super fast and no dice. Maybe with heavy humidifying right next to the press (I don't dry on racks but force dry through the texair with the air warmed to around 100º F) and switching over to speedball or the like but, dammit, I love that TW flat and can hand print it just fine. 

[StuJohnston]

Is it common that shirt dryers can run at ~100º? I was thinking about this a while ago because I thought it would be cool use for sticker printing with solvent inks so I could do a quick turnaround to the next color. The inks take about 15 minutes to dry on vinyl in 70º temps, but less than a minute at 115º I think.

Speaking of retarding inks, I use 9700 series nazdar inks and it has to be over 80º before I use retarder. When I was first starting out, I decided that I needed to use retarder because I wasn't fast enough at pulling at the time. I swear, the ink took forever to dry and it was nowhere near the upper limit on percent thinner!

I have a lawson geniette that I have started to restore to working condition. It works with a cam system, which is similar to the cameos and tempos from what I have heard. It does the same non-flood thing as well, but the cycle is just controlled by a microswitch that is triggered by a ring on the driveshaft so everytime the shaft makes a full turn, it trips the relay or whatever it is and stops the head. I haven't done it yet, but I am certain that I can get it to stay flooded if I just turn that ring 180º.

I am really glad to find this thread as I am also thinking of buying an arrow multiprinter. Am I correct that the micros adjust the screen frame from the back of the head? What size print area does an 8/6 have?

[ZooCity]

Stu,

I think any conveyor dryer should be able to run fairly low and then you could speed up the belt.  The only reason I warm our air is to run the belt a little faster when I'm really moving on hand printing, it really the airflow that gets the job done. 

Word of caution- I hear that some vinyl inks do not take well to being force dried.  I have no experience with these however.

I'm wondering now if I can't get the Tempo to flood at half down.  I guess you would have to get it to start it's flood cycle on the chopper but halve the cycle that lowers the screen and head down.  Then teach it to stop right before switching over the carriage from flood to print.  Or you could just hit the safety bar but if you forget to do that you'll be printing air and probably splashing ink all over. 

I agree that anything should be 'retardable' to the point where it takes all day to dry and never locks into the screen but I've had no luck thinning with both water, retarder and even slow retarder to the max on these TW inks.  Fine for hand prints, but even then it will start to lock in on me from time to time.