ink/water balance

[maas]

Hi,

We are experiencing a rather nasty problem which we cannot over come.
History: 5 colour CD UV press 2001 – all running well. Last week we put a sealer in unit 5the yellow unit. Since then blue on unit 4 is creeping forwards and contamination the yellow. We have change the rollers in unit 5, changed the water even though it cannot be that as all other units working well. We have swapped over motors. Changed blankets. All unit rollers heaters seem to be working ok. Nothing has worked so any ideas please.

We are not sure if it is just a coincidence with that we ran the sealer.
Could it unit 5 that is wrong or unit 4 as everything in unit 5 seems ok.
Any help appreciated.

Regards T

Rogue, fill the duct with another ink ie magenta fromt he same manufacturer and see if the problem repeats, try a batch of ink from a different manufacturer and see if the issue repeats itself, if it does then i suggest it mechanical, check all your roller settings, undercut and shore hardness of the rollers etc etc.

regards
Maas

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Pass Sheet

Pass Sheet

Gentlemen,


It's taking far too long getting the Ink/Water Balance, 4 years is long enough.

I'm waiting to sign the pass sheet.


Regards, Alois

 

[Green Printer]

Gentlemen,


It's taking far too long getting the Ink/Water Balance, 4 years is long enough.

I'm waiting to sign the pass sheet.


Regards, Alois

Alois

You are so correct. They don't understand and are unable to grasp the concepts.

Some of these guys will be fooling around with water balance until they retire. When they turn 65 they can say they had 45 years experience. I would say they have 1 years worth experience repeated 45 times.

 

[gordo]

Gentlemen,


It's taking far too long getting the Ink/Water Balance, 4 years is long enough.

I'm waiting to sign the pass sheet.


Regards, Alois

Especially since new presses have gotten the time down to just three years. The craft is gone but thankfully the craftiness remains.

Gordon

 

[Lukew]

We once had an old press guy who used to love playing pranks on newbies.
One time we had a trainee come in, who was to learn the ropes and start off on a little single colour, But not long after being there he would come over to the old pressman who was running a larger machine and say 'when can I run this one?'

After a few requests of when he's going to get to run it from the newbie, the Old guy said 'can you go out into the store room and get me the ink / water balancer please, I'm having a few issues'.

Newbe: 'what does it look like'

Old guy: 'argh it has ink/ water balancer written on it you will find it in there somewhere'

So newbie heads off looking for it, only to come back in 30 mins later empty handed.

Newbie: 'I can't find it anywhere, you sure its in there?'

Old guy: ' pissing himself with laughter replies, Thats because it's right here. Me the operator, once you have mastered it on that small 1 colour press you can do some training on this large press'

Newbie wasn't overly impressed he'd just had the piss taken out of him....

 

[danremaley]

Call GATF, ask for Dillon Mooney. GATF had a very small color bar element that had diagonal lines with a solid area behind it, you could make it digitally. When the lines expanded (too much ink) or the solid "snowflaked" (too much water) - this is a visual inspection.
American Priinting & Consulting
Dan Remaley

 

[BMM Carol]

We have a fountain solution that has fixed this issue on a number of XL presses in the UK. Are you still running at these high levels?

I have an XL 105 that the pressman are running there waters at 70%, does anyone else have an XL 105 run their waters this high? The dots looks like mush compared to our 15 year old Komori. Both presses are running same plates and ink and chemistry.

 

[nick simard]

Just take some of sample prints instead of putting your self into long tension

bear a little cost and rest of it will be very easy

 

[GazKL440]

Funnily enough it's not something I even think about when running a job: it's simply part of setting up each and every job as it gets to the press and on long runs keep in mind all the variables that can affect your water film... ambient temp, fountain cooling unit faults (god but I've got to keep an eye on chiller temps/pressures fml!), ensure your half tones in your colour bars are open and keep sampling sheets and comparing them to your signed off copy and run the denso over it.

Pretty straight forward with good and properly set rollers: I'm waiting on a new chrome oscillator for unit 2 ATM, it's cracking and is slowly destroying the metering roller, so you've got to chase it a little and run a higher ink film in that area to beat down the watering issue but that's life on a printing press!

Early in the thread someone nailed it:

MINIMUMS: the golden rules.... Minimum ink, water and pressure. Start lower than you think you need to at first and soon enough you are hitting your optimized points for the press, stock, and ink/water balance without having to nut it out, it comes naturally.... Or by wire on your more fancy machinery