AUTO WARS 3 - Squeegees & Flood Bars - Videos only

[inkman996]

What I do is set all my Squeegees with the choppers to just kiss the platen. I make sure I find the lowest platen to do this other wise it will not work exactly. I then do exactly as Alan does and use the air pressure to find the best sheer for the ink, I can change it for any ink property in a second. What I find is by setting the squeegee the way I do and leave it alone all I then do is Find the best adjustments on all the other variables, like air pressure, speed, angle, etc. The old days for me on the Jav was add more squeegee pressure till the screen cleared lets just say the detail was not always the best.

[ZooCity]

ok, so the chopper adjustments on either side raise/lower the blades and the air regulates how much downward force is behind the assembly?

So if you set the air at zero but the choppers were down in the right place and tried to run some white through a 310 the blade would probably just skip over the top of the stencil, not clearing it?

I think I've got it. 

[Screened Gear]

ok, so the chopper adjustments on either side raise/lower the blades and the air regulates how much downward force is behind the assembly?

So if you set the air at zero but the choppers were down in the right place and tried to run some white through a 310 the blade would probably just skip over the top of the stencil, not clearing it?

I think I've got it.

With the air set to zero the squeegees would not even come down to print. The air pressure controls or drives the choppers movement. You need at least some pressure just to make the squeegee move down.  It is really a very precise dance you do with the air pressure and the chopper setting. Someday I will get it just right. I think it is easier to just set the air or the choppers at one setting and then control everything with the other. I think that is how everyone is doing it.

[ZooCity]

Got it.  I guess I was comparing this visually to the only autos I have which are a pair of American flatstock presses.  On those you simply adjust the squeegee down and lock it.  No other pressure controls that I can see.  I think it has one "pressure" and then you raise/lower your blades around that.  No air runs to the machines.

[inkman996]

Lets look at it this way.

place a squeegee in the squeegee holder with no screen in the head raise the table and lower the squeegee to printing position. Now using the chopper knobs set your squeegee depth to just kissing the palette even on both sides. You may think ok that is it the thing will always print that depth wrong. Put a screen in now really high tension with a thick white ink. Drop your squeegee down to print position at a very low air pressure, well because of the screen tension it will need more air pressure, so you increase, you do this for all ink types they dont all require the same amount of pressure as others and all screens have different tensions as well. Now the real beauty here is no matter how much pressure you add with air you are not going to drive the squeegee any deeper into the palette, the choppers mechanically stop that.

My thinking is if you set your choppers to allow the squeegee to just touch the palette and you are having an issue clearing the screen it has nothing to do with the depth of the squeegee but most definitely one of the other variables, speed, air pressure, angle. Find the sweet spot in them and you will have good prints with much much less fibrillation.

By setting the squeegee to a certain depth and convince your self to never adjust that it will force you to consider the other variables to get a good print, the old way was MORE PRESSURE! Not anymore for me.

[ZooCity]

Thanks inkman that clarifies it for me.  The chopper adjustments set the depth, like stop points.  Then you set your pressure where you need it.

So I guess on these old American units without any air it's one pressure and all you get to adjust is the height of the squeegee and flood.  And it sounds like for the newer machines, most do it the other way around- set the blade heights and adjust pressure. 

[alan802]

Zoo, our old centurian had a squeegee pressure air regulator just like the modern presses have.  I'm not sure if the multiprinters have that or not.  I'm telling you, those old centurians were ahead of the game way back in the late 80's, early 90's.

[ZooCity]

Zoo, our old centurian had a squeegee pressure air regulator just like the modern presses have.  I'm not sure if the multiprinters have that or not.  I'm telling you, those old centurians were ahead of the game way back in the late 80's, early 90's.

Some do, some don't.  Same goes for the flatstock presses like the Tempo, I've seen them both ways.  All our gear doesn't have it.  I'm not sure if there's a certain vintage where they started adding it standard but it's probably unnecessary on some of the models like the Cameos that were out there kicking out membrane panels of the same thickall day every day, you just don't have much to adjust there.  I would imagine you could retrofit this on with some parts from GPI though, maybe just upgrade the ub head since white is such a finicky ink that shifts its rheology on you during the run. 

Getting off topic but Alan how did you manage parts & service with that Centurian?  AWT-GPI has one of the weirdest ordering systems out there and 9/10 times you don't get what you needed so that kinda is a deterrent for me. 

[alan802]

I went through the equipment services group at GSG in Dallas. Those guys know the centurian better than most, maybe even better than the AWT people.  They always got me parts the next day so they must be plentiful.

[ZooCity]

I went through the equipment services group at GSG in Dallas. Those guys know the centurian better than most, maybe even better than the AWT people.  They always got me parts the next day so they must be plentiful.

Noted, thx Alan

[Screened Gear]

Anyone else want to post a video? We are still missing quite a few of the big manufactures here like TAS, M&R, Brown, Lawson, Progressive / Falcon.

[alan802]

Yes, come on people, need more videos.  Not one single M&R press out there?  Don't tell me everyone is too busy printing on them to have time to post a 2 minute video.  If I can do it with the last few weeks going on anybody should. 

[Screened Gear]

Killer has a Brown press that I would love to see.