The late 90s M&R all-air Gauntlet S - opinions?

[Printficient]

Picking up a '92 locally first thing in March.  I'm pumped.  The press is in amazing shape considering it's age, insane deal and even has a no shirt detector.  The Omron microprocessor is fine from my inspection, it's a simple issue with the sensor that signals it to start the next cycle when the carriage drops/raises.  Once again reviving this thread in the interest of keeping a lot of info on these machines in one place.

mk, and others, you mentioned having a certain set of parts on hand at all times.  Care to post and share that list here?  I'm lucky in that I have a spare mosier indexer cylinder and a couple of spare carriage bumpers, etc. coming with the machine but I'm sure there's much more to acquire for backup. 

The only 3 upgrades I'm planning on making, right out of the gates are:  putting kip levers on all squeegee/flood angle adjustments, installing air squeegee and flood clamps and, here's the one that may/may not be possible...

As to parts, Bill Foust bought out Rick at Aero.  Handle is danilsade.  As to the other issue....call....you know who....Winston.   904-343-0848
...has anyone reworked one of these to allow the squeegee and flood bars to lift at rest, rather than maintaining pressure on the screen all the time?  If I go down that road of installing new valves to allow this I'll probably also want to program it to flood at rest rather than flooding after the dwell is complete.  Not necessary for wb on an auto if you are moving fast enough but would be very, very nice to have.

And one more ?:  it looks like I have room to fit my 25x30 M3s in this press but it looks close, anyone run 25" wide on these.  I know that the max length is 31" and can always buy new 23x31 rollers with the cash I'm saving but would rather just use our current stock.

[mk162]

Prox sensors...1 or 2

Chopper cylinders... a few of those will do.  You can also use the bigger 1" for the squeegee and 1/2 or 3/4" for the flood.

I would also replace the head shocks with the rubber stoppers.  They last a long freaking time.

That should do it.

[tonypep]

25x 30 frames every other head possible but you need to make sure you have a large enough flash which, if it fits, chews up heads. Air clamps for sq/fld are either a. impossible or b. really really expensive. Same for the squeegee rest but if you find a solution to that let me know. Kips? Probable and cheap. My last 6/8 has all of those deficiences but I still love it. It can generate thousands of $ in gross revenue a day

[ebscreen]

Congratulations man, 'bout friggin time!

Air screen clamps? Roller frame bars/clamps? The adapter clamp things are annoying, but
let me know if you need any, I think I have a few.


The sq/flood chop at rest would likely require re-programming as well as a different valve,
3 way if I'm not mistaken. You might be able to finagle something using the signal (or even air) that goes to the
stroke cylinder, IE chop when flood stroke starts.

[Homer]

...has anyone reworked one of these to allow the squeegee and flood bars to lift at rest, rather than maintaining pressure on the screen all the time?  If I go down that road of installing new valves to allow this I'll probably also want to program it to flood at rest rather than flooding after the dwell is complete.  Not necessary for wb on an auto if you are moving fast enough but would be very, very nice to have.

that's been my bitch for the past 3 years...have fun using the micros! actually they aren't too bad once you learn how to counter act the force of the squeegies....I would suggest to get those kits that go on the head that dumps the air out of the choppers, that way you don't have to monkey with the squeeg/flood pressure as much...I'll go take a pic of them in a minute.

[ZooCity]

Ohhh...every other head?  It looks so close from my measurement!  They just don't fit then?

It comes with a little Omni flash but I'll be using our 20x24 red chili with it.  I use 25" wide to print standard image sizes b/c I like the increases "sweet spot" you get with a wider roller frame.  Not noticeable until you run a 6 color sim pro job close to full size but it does make a difference there.

I was trolling the M&R parts store and, yes, it would be probably around $200-250/head by the time I had it all installed using one of their assys for the clamps so probably not going to happen unless I have someone make the extrusions for me cheaper locally and get more affordable air cylinders for the project.  I don't mind the manual clamps too much.   Will have to think about if the $1500 to do that upgrade would be worth it...  Ironically, their manual clamps on the parts store ain't much cheaper than the air assy.

mk, do you know the part # for the bigger, 1" cylinders.  I plan on keeping "upgrade" backups for all the cylinders rather than the same.  They all look a bit skinny to me. 

Tony, how do you over come the constant pressure from the flood or the squeegee on the screen.  Homer brought this up as major issue as well.  It's not a deal breaker for me but I know it will be a pain in my rear.  Then again, if I had the press in the shop this week it would be bangin out (4) 200-800 pc 1co DC orders, a 100 pc 2co DC and a 100pc 4co DC.  All of which would play fine with that situation.  It would likely not play well with the 6 color sim pro plastisol job on canvas totes.  Having that blade pressure preventing clean peel on WOW plastisol prints sounds like a trip to downtown trouble town to me.   

[ZooCity]

Congratulations man, 'bout friggin time!

I know, right?!

We have a whole bucket of M3 clamp adapters if needed, thx though.  I think you are barking up the right tree with the different air switch and then getting into the program and sort of tweaking that part of the cycle.  The big obstacle, or so it appears to me from watching this thing work for 10 minutes, is that it's all setup to:  End Print - Dwell - Table Down - Index/Flood - Table Up/Print.  Would have to put the thinking cap on to get that reworked.

Jason, show me that upgrade and where to get them.  That would be huge to just dump air and let the blades rise up for micros and loading/unloading.

[ebscreen]

Yeah, pretty simple when you get down to it. It's the NOT allowing the thing to index/print
unless the proxies are reading right that's the hard part.

As for dropping the sq/fl pressure off, should be as simple as a manual three way exhausting valve?

[tonypep]

There are three fixes to the squeegee rest. a. brute force that puppy in there, bshut off and drain the air, or c. raise it as high as it goes then lower. Major design flaw

[ZooCity]

Yeah, I don't know what they were thinking when they engineered it that way.  I like adding an easy switch to dump air.  When you dump air, does it naturally lift the carriages or do they just hang there?

Talking out my ass here but, the dwell obviously has some sort of counting/metering to it.  If you could program it to send a signal out at different points in the dwell count you might be able to add functions at the beginning of the dwell clock.  Maybe you could install the three ways and have them fire on the first "unit" or "second" of the dwell count?  This presumes a command is not already being used there.  I need to get an interface for the Omron to mess with this.

[ebscreen]

Oh man, ladder programming PLC logic? May the force be with you...

Generally speaking when you dump air from a chopper system it will hang where it is.
Wonder if it is possible to put in another valve that will pressurize both sq and fl at the same time,
balancing them out.

[tonypep]

They just hang there and you can lift them freely

[ScreenFoo]

I don't think there's any way of putting the Sq and Fl up at the same time--it's an A/B mac that is hooked up crossed over--if the squeegees down, the flood is up, and vice versa.
Dump the air, and they drop because of gravity--although personally, I think it's easier to put the squeegee in with air on, the flood is easier to put in, while in the flood position.  (if that makes sense)

You bugged M&R yet about the program and whether or not they have a WB style program for those older guys? 


Even with just plastisol the F/R control comes in handy when you have money-persons who don't want to pay to fix the seal that leaks in the rear position....   

[Homer]

as far as I know, and after talking to the Hoff, it is not possible to reprogram these older units. One other thing Zoo, check the internal battery on the main control unit. It's a tiny little thing, cost about 15.00 @ radio shack....if that battery goes dead, you will loose the entire program and then have to send it in to M&R to get reprogrammed for 250.00......the battery lasts about 3-4 years...once again, ask me how I know.

Pics in a sec.

the whole kit, I have one more here to install

[ericheartsu]

if you find out if they have a wb program please let me know! we just bought a 6/8, and realized that we might not be able to to run WB because of this.

BUT! i am tempted to set some of the heads as flashes, and see if that would work