DIY Triloc Clone

[paradoxsc]

***DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT PICS ARE NOT LOADING - RIGHT CLICK>OPEN IN NEW WINDOW TO SEE***
I am lucky enough to have access to aluminum in huge quantities and a fabrication shop with the ability to route it out to any shape easily.

1)Order aluminum sheets for routing. They need to be dead a$$ flat so be sure to check before accepting the shipment.
- 0.25 (pallet)
- 0.080 (jig)
I am actually using leftover drops (cut piece sheets) that the fabrication shop next door was kind enough to sell me at a discount.

2) Order springs. McMaster-Carr has them for a couple bucks each. Not sure what the real ones M&R uses are though.

3)Create vector files for router (the router uses another program to output)



4)Load and route the aluminum. Here is the finished result.



So far so good, but I really have not gotten to the tricky part. Attaching the stops/springs and mounting the bracket to the pallet jig.

Next step: Order pin-bar, carrier sheets, and pallet attachment from M&R. So far I'm in it for about $200.00 after all the other stuff i'll be at around 450-500. Only time will tell what the final cost will be. Time is one thing to consider. Another is accuracy. Paying a little extra for piece of mind for the real deal could be worth it to some folks.

Issues So Far:
-The light table/exposure Jig will need to be re-cut. The pinbar area with the cutout should be on the other side. Also the real triloc has a slight cut-in on the bottom as well, so I will have to redo my vector file and re-route it. Luckily 0.080" is much cheaper than .25"

That's as far as I have gotten so far. I will update with more pictures/steps when I get more done with it. No time right now.

[kingscreen]

Looks awesome!  Great work.

[Lizard]

If you are building a better mouse trap I say go for it.  If you are simply copying the current version there are plenty slightly used ones in the marketplace that you could grab for an affordable price that are tried and true.

[Atownsend]

Hey Austin! I did see this the other day. it looks fantastic. Busy season here so not much time. Can't wait to see how this turns out for you. My advice, skip the pin bar / carrier sheets etc and build a FPU / light table jig for your screens. That way you tape the films directly onto the screens in registration rather than dealing with the carrier sheets. The work on this will pay off very quickly. Glad to see it coming along. Make sure to post pics as you progress!

[paradoxsc]

Hey Austin! I did see this the other day. it looks fantastic. Busy season here so not much time. Can't wait to see how this turns out for you. My advice, skip the pin bar / carrier sheets etc and build a FPU / light table jig for your screens. That way you tape the films directly onto the screens in registration rather than dealing with the carrier sheets. The work on this will pay off very quickly. Glad to see it coming along. Make sure to post pics as you progress!

I might just make both and see which works better for me. The only thing I am worried about with the inverted FPU is the lighting. I can put in basic LED's but will they expose my screen when i'm trying to line up the films? How did you handle this with yours? I have access to clear acrylic and lexan for a light cover but don't know if they block UV's.

Also, I'm thinking about TIG welding my stops and springs to the jigs but i'm worried about the heat warping the metal do you have a better way to attach stuff so it wont move? I can use the same pallet adhesive/primer combo that m&r uses to put the bracket rails on the pallets but i'm worried about play.

Also attached a pic of the routed metal. Don't mind the onesie platens...Nothing to see here...Move along.

[mk162]

if it's aluminum you can braze them together.  I've done it a few times.  Works great, just practice on some scrap, thinner aluminum like our frames tend to melt quickly.

[mimosatexas]

Definitely go with the inverted triloc FPU instead of the carrier sheets.  Faster and more precise in my opinion.  Less opportunity for things to shift around since the films are aligned to a static position on the FPU and taped directly to the screen.  I have a small flo bulb under 2 layers of plexi on mine.  No issues with screens exposing.  The plexi blocks a ton of UV and the bulb isnt designed with UV output in mind so it sucks for exposure anyway.  The screen is also only on the FPU for maybe 10 or 15 seconds at a time.  I rarely use micros with my DIY setup, maybe 1 in 10 jobs require an adjustment, and most of those are due to me fudging with off contact to account for squeegee pressure and screen tension variances, not because the films were aligned incorrectly.

[Atownsend]

Brazing would work for sure. There is also a product out there called allumiweld that is supposed to work well. I didnt want to mess around with introducing heat to it, so I just drilled / tapped / countersunk everything. Just use good titanium coated taps / countersinks and really scribe / measure everything out exactly.

The spring stops have a surprising amount of force behind them, I had to oval the holes a bit on mine because of mismeasurment. I also had to use spacers to get the height correct.

If you're on an early gauntlet like mine (which i think you are), you will fight the front frame holder flex. We have found that if you unlock the micros between setups and push the frame forward towards the center of the press it will "reset" and the pre reg will be pretty close to dead on. But the flex does really eff with things. In either case, we are still running 5-10 multi color setups on it each day, which would be impossible without pre reg.

On the lighting, Mimosatexas is right on this one. We just took a low wattage, low profile LED strip from lowes and placed it in the back. It hasn't messed with our exposure times at all, and we have been fine with it. Normally we don't have a screen on there for any more than a few 20 seconds or so, but we have left a screen or two the FPU for maybe 30 minutes once with the backlight on and it still exposed without issue.

[paradoxsc]

Brazing would work for sure. There is also a product out there called allumiweld that is supposed to work well. I didnt want to mess around with introducing heat to it, so I just drilled / tapped / countersunk everything. Just use good titanium coated taps / countersinks and really scribe / measure everything out exactly.

The spring stops have a surprising amount of force behind them, I had to oval the holes a bit on mine because of mismeasurment. I also had to use spacers to get the height correct.

If you're on an early gauntlet like mine (which i think you are), you will fight the front frame holder flex. We have found that if you unlock the micros between setups and push the frame forward towards the center of the press it will "reset" and the pre reg will be pretty close to dead on. But the flex does really eff with things. In either case, we are still running 5-10 multi color setups on it each day, which would be impossible without pre reg.

On the lighting, Mimosatexas is right on this one. We just took a low wattage, low profile LED strip from lowes and placed it in the back. It hasn't messed with our exposure times at all, and we have been fine with it. Normally we don't have a screen on there for any more than a few 20 seconds or so, but we have left a screen or two the FPU for maybe 30 minutes once with the backlight on and it still exposed without issue.

Whelp, its back to the drawing board. I decided to go FPU after all. I also figured out that I can use the routers drilling capabilities to go ahead and make the holes for the stops, and the stops themselves, this should make this build more accurate. Luckily I bought extra .25" aluminum and have enough to do a new set without spending any more money. It's going to get cut next week so i'll post pictures of the final. Here is a picture of the template.

[paradoxsc]

UPDATE:
Finally The pieces got cut for the FPU version!!!

The idea here is that by having the router drill the holes that the stop blocks will perfectly match on either unit. Laid on top of one another the jigs both line up great. I am going to tap the holes so that I can bolt the stops on and I am also going to countersink them so the bolts lay flat. The FPU itself will have to have a box built for the lighting and registration film. I'm going to copy what Aarontownsend did with his here. It might look funky to some of you, but this unit will be made specifically for my guantlet S so I am building it to match the print area available on that specific machine.

I also recently bought a real trilock exposure unit jig(eBay $290) and an extra pin-bar($49 Thames Burton) for the light table so I can have a backup in case this idea fails. I will simply measure the blocks on the real trilock and attach some to the first pallet jig I had cut originally so that they match.

I think I'm going to build both systems regardless, just to see which I prefer. I have a hunch that the FPU is going to win that battle. I'll let you guys know when I have more progress to report.

See the pictures attached:

[paradoxsc]

UPDATE: ADDED STOPS

I had to re-drill the 1/4" holes because I wanted something a little more beefy with more thread bite so I could torque it down really good. I used a drill press and kept the jigs level and clamped the entire time so I would not oval any holes. Also had to sand all of the marred edges, do this very lightly.

I ended up tapping it for 5/16-24 bolts. I bought 3/4" thread length bolts so they would not stick out of the bottoms of the jigs. (Not crazy about the bolt heads sticking out but it will work just fine) I tapped directly into the jigs and not at all on the stops. The logic here is sort of like calibrating the registration bearings on a press. You can loosen the bolts and ever so slightly shift the block if an adjustment is ever required.

I used a screen frame and got it where I wanted it on the FPU jig with the blocks on but not fully torqued down. When I had the screen touching all the stops without any gap I clamped the screen frame with constant force(not too hard) on the stops then, I torqued down the top short block then followed with the longest one near the bottom and finally, the middle block. I did the exact same thing with the other jig and was sure to use the same side & corner of the frame to match.

When I had everything locked down I laid a screen in the FPU jig against the blocks and put the pallet jig on top upside down. I did some measurements to be sure everything was in line. So far so good....

[paradoxsc]

....more pics

[paradoxsc]

I also added the spring stops to the FPU jig as well. Tapped the holes with a 1/4"-20 tap. Drilled them with a 13/64" bit.

These I was really sloppy with, they are not precision parts to this build so I just placed them against the frame on the jig, quickly drew a line on the backside, took the frame out, measured in 1/8th" redrew the lines, drilled/tapped and done.

Once they were attached, I popped a screen frame in and did some more measuring to be sure and it all lines up!

Next step is attaching the pallet bracket, which I just ordered from M&R for $46 for a tiny piece of aluminum.

PS: If anyone has a cheaper source let me know! Its an aluminum extruded hat channel and that's all I know(see pic), I do know it's available because there are certain individuals who have 12ft sticks of it. I checked the eastern metal supply catalog and couldn't find it. Maybe I'll give those guys a call.

[paradoxsc]

Another thought,

I am making this thing for statics because that pretty much all we use here, eww lame right?

I do however have some roller frames and just tested this with a 23x31" M3 frame. The stop blocks work perfectly with the roller frame but the springs are not positioned right to hold it firmly.

No big deal to me since we rarely use them. But for someone who is building an FPU for roller frames and using this post as a haphazard guide, use a roller frame to set the springs, you may have to add a shim to make the springs meet the middle of the roller another piece of .25" perhaps, also take into account the groove for the mesh locking strip, if the spring goes in there that could make it loose.

[mk162]

With smart mesh statics I wouldn't worry about rollers.

Looks fantastic BTW