The Hot Rod Gauntlet Thread

[ZooCity]

Agreed Sonny!  We have had a rather anorexic screen library until recently so have needed to cycle screens very quickly.  Adding another 100 frames to mitigate it.

Longer expo does cost more in electricity and bulb wear however, unless you have a fancy new LED unit.

[Printficient]

Agreed Sonny!  We have had a rather anorexic screen library until recently so have needed to cycle screens very quickly.  Adding another 100 frames to mitigate it.

Longer expo does cost more in electricity and bulb wear however, unless you have a fancy new LED unit.

I'll get right on that 100 frames.  We do 'em some good mesh counts.  We stretch 'em tight.  We make 'em outta wood and aluminum for you.  Call 'em hybrid.

[ScreenFoo]

If every hundred frames I had meant I got art two days earlier, I'd have bought a thousand by now...   

[alan802]

We need someone who will stretch up some nice statics but with the right mesh counts for printing thick plastisol inks.  I know someone who is working on that, I'll post more about it when the project is complete.

[Homer]

We need someone who will stretch up some nice statics but with the right mesh counts for printing thick plastisol inks.  I know someone who is working on that, I'll post more about it when the project is complete.

doing right now actually. ordered me up some 150/48 S mesh along with a few other counts...nobody can stretch a static to my satisfaction...I'll stretch it a few times during the day, let it rest over the weekend and glue it up on Monday, start the process over. takes a while but man are they tight....

[alan802]

I'm hoping that I'll have a few to test out next week and I'll document tensions along the way.  I'm hoping they come in at the right tension and then maintain that tension within 15% after a few runs through production.  That's the goal and if they pass the test then I foresee there being a problem keeping them in stock.

[ZooCity]

Reviving the Gauntlet hot rod/rat rod thread here. 

We have a monster (for us) order coming up and the time has come to run our little '92 GT-6 as fast as it can possibly go.  All other parameters regarding the print and the general condition of the press being taken care of already- where do I start tuning the machine to fly?

I know it's going to have something to do with upping the index speed/pressure and therefore re-tuning in the shock absorber/cylinder to accommodate that increased speed so it pops up correctly into the reg gates and isn't over or under shooting on the index.   

I have our lift cyls set to exhaust as rapidly as possibly but that still seems slow.  Not sure what else could be done to help the table drop more efficiently.  On that note I suppose a very well tuned index could allow a faster lift though I haven't found our current lift settings to be too slow and understand that the faster you lift the more you could wear/mushroom out your reg gates and cam followers if the press isn't perfect regarding index and reg.

What's max cycle speed on a series 1 Gauntlet 6/8 anyways?

[jsheridan]

yeah you have to tune the air in, the cushion adjuster and that large shock. Get all that done smooth then adjust the lift.

to tune the drop open the base and find the adjustor mac valve  for the lift cylinder. that regulates the inlet flow, adjust that so it pops up.
To tune the drop you have to adjust the cushion screw.  tune it so that when it drops you get a very mild 'thunk' and turn in a bit so that thunk just barely disappears.

as for max.. in 1994 I had a 6 color gaunt(or whatever it was called then) spinning at 98dz an hour after tuned up

[ScreenFoo]

^^THAT is a blast.  98 doz/hr is killer, old 8/10 I was first on I couldn't get up much over 80 or I couldn't get the clunk out anymore.

1 more note, (IIRC your press is like this as well) --set the cushion while your OC is in the middle of the range, or in the position where you'll run it printing--tuned mine in the high line-up position, realized I had to re-tune it when I dropped OC to do fleece. 

You want to print fast?  Did you do those arms up proper yet?  Tellin' ya... 

[ZooCity]

No central o.c. on this one but what a great point.  And John, that's pretty much the exact info I needed to do this.

If I could get this thing going over 900 pcs/hr I'd be shickled titless.  That could drop 4 days of printing to 2 which is solid gold to us right now with our sched.

Thanks guys, I'll get to it here soon.  Have a fresh bank of Mac valves to install while I'm at it.

Foo, I didn't have the balls to do the arm thing. 

[mk162]

on our gauntlet, it just wouldn't got hat fast anymore.  I think the indexer cylinder was worn or something.  We replaced the indexer solenoid and that helped, but it would never get above 65dz per hour dry cycling.

It might not go that fast anymore unless it's been pretty well rebuilt.

[ZooCity]

That's about where we're maxing out now, around 700pcs/hr or so when doing a very short, fast print, like neck labels.  But I think it can be pushed a little further with a good adjustment of the index speed and lift/lower.  With a longer stroke going on it becomes really critical to index fast as possible. 

We've replaced all stroke choppers, stroke cyls and will now have all the mac valves replaced.  Index cyl is newer, lift cyls look quite new as well, but the index shock and various solenoids haven't been replaced so that might be the final step after this. 

[ZooCity]

Got 'er up to 960/hr dry cycling, 840/hr with a full length 1x stroke at medium/fast stroke speed.  Not bad so far. 

I tuned one thing at a time to learn how the adjustment worked and how sensitive the adjustments were.  It took a little doing to manage the interrelated variables of the incoming air pressure, index pressure, index cyl stroke and decel and cushion, table up speed, and so on.  Winston mentioned the decel adjustments on the index cyl and that was crucial to getting it set properly.

Not to turn this into a full blown troubleshooting thread but a few things came up related to this change in speed that I'm stumped on:

• When running in auto mode the press occasionally just stops.  I'm guessing a prox needs adjusted somewhere. Or it's just the Omron controller doing it's thing.
• Table up into reg gates is randomly rough.  As in, I'll have it running smooth as silk and then it will haul off and have a very rough, loud, table up, then back to smooth.  I patterned it to see if it was the registration but it's not, there's absolutely no repeating pattern to it at all.  It will go 8 indexes with no issue and the ninth is rough.  Just tuned it again and lowered the speed that the table lifts to give it some more leeway in hitting the reg gates, ran it through a few dozen indexes, all good.  Now I'm back in the office and can hear it running rough as hell all of the sudden.  Air is consistent, this happens with compressor running or not.  Can't nail down a cause here but my best guess is either the index cyl is beat and is inconsistent or I don't have consistent scfm and might need another air tank in line with the press or I need to replace all the cam followers used for indexing.  If they have become oblong I bet that could cause this seemingly random mis-alignment of the table.  Any thoughts?  I have noticed that, when double stroking with a fast table up it won't hit the same spot twice tabling up, that is it will table up smooth into the gates, table down and back up rough.  Seems odd that it would behave like that and maybe a clue?

[ericheartsu]

i have a question about the gauntlet.

Ours has Central OC, but for whatever reason, we still have to manually check and change each screen. We only use m3 frames, and they are always flattened right after tensioning.

So why do we have to constantly do this? shouldn't be just a simple slide in and go?

[GaryG]

It should go straight up.
Bearings also should be tight against the shaft,
not tilting from side to side slightly?