Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
Sonny, that sounds like hell. I think a series 1 would be off by rougly 10 times your tolerance in about 2-3 days of normal production. Our Gauntlet's platens will be up to 1/16" out of parallel in about 3 production days. We were paralleling every Friday and now it's every Wed and Fri. One thing that any of these jigs will not help with is the plane of carriage- if the carriages and print head arms are not in plane with each other across their entire linear motion or very, very close you will still have frustrations on a press with screen holder and platens in parallel. Use a flood bar and no screen loaded to confirm that each print head is on the same plane and fix that if needed first, then get to it with keeping holders and platens in parallel.
We parallel to the floodbar. It just makes way more sense than paralleling to a screen. I make 2 jigs out of .060" lexan with another piece of .010" lexan glued on top like a small step. We level all 4 corners until he floodbar just barely clears the .060" and catches the .010" step on top, which puts us less than .010" from perfect, which is plenty good enough on a press with 2.5million prints on it. The new squeegee sharpener will be here tomorrow and squeegees will be less than .002" from perfect in their holders. I'm looking to really pushing our limits in the next year, working towards all single-strokes, minimal pressure and one-hit whites.
What would be ideal would be a flood bar with dial indicators on each end. Should be dead simple to fab too. We put a dime on the prox. sensor so the choppers keep the pressure on the floodbar and you can still move the carriage back and forth.
Quote from: Inkworks on November 19, 2013, 09:56:44 PMWhat would be ideal would be a flood bar with dial indicators on each end. Should be dead simple to fab too. We put a dime on the prox. sensor so the choppers keep the pressure on the floodbar and you can still move the carriage back and forth.I like it - Would it look something like this? Would you like to try it and report on your findings?
I'll see your crazy contraption and raise you one simpler--two mag bases for dial indicators, one on each end of your floodbar mount.
Quote from: ScreenFoo on November 20, 2013, 10:45:32 AMI'll see your crazy contraption and raise you one simpler--two mag bases for dial indicators, one on each end of your floodbar mount. Even better, but they'd have to start making the flood bars with something besides aluminum.
Day late and a dollar short Alan.