snapped

[cleveprint]

anyone ever see this?? our hotronix heat press, which has always been a piece of junk, completely snapped in half. the shaft where it swings out is gone! our girl pressing said its not like the pressure was that high or was really leaning on it. either way, this is one piece of equip that ill be happy to toss away. terrible design, never worked properly. there are two floating spacers that keep the handle in place, those constantly fall out. to replace them when they did fall out, you needed to take the entire plastic housing off. doing that loosened the computer ribbon all the time, never let the keypad work. i feel like i could keep going. it was completely over engineered.

luckily we have 2, 20 year old heat presses that fire up and work properly every single day. i dont even know what brand they are but they work fantastic.

[mooseman]

That is truly amazing. I have worked with rotating equipment for many many years, seen snapped shafts , bent shafts, bearing cut shafts but I have never seen a wrought steel shaft of that diameter break like that.
Even with a tremoundous amount of bending moment, (from the platten down load) concentrated at the collar and given that the shaft may have been scribed over the years of rotation I find it very hard to believe this would be possible.

mooseman

[dirkdiggler]

same thing happened to me, same machine.

[Get Shirts]

Yes, we have had that happen to us as well.

[mooseman]

maybe you could use this to re-align the broken shaft for welding

http://www.stahls.com/portable-heat-press-laser-alignment-system

mooseman

[screenxpress]

The expanded picture looks a bit blurry, but it has the appearance of what we used to call pop-metal, which was die-cast and not really pure (strong) steel.  Porous in nature loosing tinsel strength.

It certainly does not look like a solid steel cylinder, which would likely survive a test by The Hulk. Man, a steel cylinder of that diameter would add about 40 lbs just from the shaft.

[tancehughes]

I have a Hotronix (not the same model as yours though) and I don't like it either. Already had two parts on it break. Will not buy another one

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

The expanded picture looks a bit blurry, but it has the appearance of what we used to call pop-metal, which was die-cast and not really pure (strong) steel.  Porous in nature loosing tinsel strength.

It certainly does not look like a solid steel cylinder, which would likely survive a test by The Hulk. Man, a steel cylinder of that diameter would add about 40 lbs just from the shaft.

Interesting.  We called it Pot Metal. Almost the same thing...I never knew any different. Die Cast Zinc I think is the correct term though, except I don't think that shaft is. I just think a poorly designed shaft combined with metal fatigue is the culprit. I  have that exact press and it is idled due to a computer board issue. (Won't stay hot)  Now I use a Hotronix Air Swinger but it is very similar.

Perhaps the shaft/base is the same.

[tonypep]

Tinsel strength=Freudian slip?

[244]

anyone ever see this?? our hotronix heat press, which has always been a piece of junk, completely snapped in half. the shaft where it swings out is gone! our girl pressing said its not like the pressure was that high or was really leaning on it. either way, this is one piece of equip that ill be happy to toss away. terrible design, never worked properly. there are two floating spacers that keep the handle in place, those constantly fall out. to replace them when they did fall out, you needed to take the entire plastic housing off. doing that loosened the computer ribbon all the time, never let the keypad work. i feel like i could keep going. it was completely over engineered.

luckily we have 2, 20 year old heat presses that fire up and work properly every single day. i dont even know what brand they are but they work fantastic.

Is there a step down machining at the area of the breakage?

[cleveprint]

regardless of what metal it is, i still cant believe it snapped. crazy to me. its not like we are sitting on the edge of it to lock the press down. just the amount of pressure it takes to put down a thermofilm number!!

[Frog]

Tinsel strength=Freudian slip?

'Tis the season?

[Frog]

Tinsel strength=Freudian slip?

[Binkspot]

Like said above just cheap cast steel, relies on mass for its strength. It's a clean break showing its brittle, not like a piece of cold rolled or something. It's proberly done that way to prevent the castings it slides into from breaking or they are just cheap.

We have the same press, went in this morning and checked ours. Nothing yet but sure it will happen.

[Sbrem]

Yeah, that's pretty strange, and it is cheaper metal for sure. I have a Hotronix hat press from the same era, and it's really a nice hat press, never a problem. I've always thought they made pretty good presses, but then again, I've only had the one for evidence. Our flat bed is an INSTA, rock solid, replaced the heat element last year (a bit of a bear) but it's always there. That being said, we have one Geo. Knight that has to to back to the late 70's, still works fine...

Steve