Krause Bluefin 650 Excessive Wear

DMHolman

New member
'lo all -

Wondering if any users of the Krause Bluefin 650 plate processor are experiencing what they'd consider to be excessive wear in the machine? Especially in the bearings. If so, what kind of wear times are you experiencing and have you tried anything to alleviate it?

Thanks!
 
Sound like the seals in the bearing housings aren't holding, I've worked on the LS range of kit but not their processors , however I know similar problems occured in Agfa badged "Hasse" Processors.

Bearing seals and blocks were being pentrated by the fumes and thus the evaporates from the bath.

This was however processing 500-1500 plates a night 7 days a week for three years.

Have you stripped the bearing from the housing? whats the condition are they rusty?

Have you replaced the bearings and or the bearing rings?

Are you UK based? Il lreplace them for you if you want!
 
I've never looked inside Bluefin 650 so my Q is: what kind of bearings are inside - ball-bearings?
AGFA LP82/150 had squeaking noise from bearings when they are corroded as a signal of the issue.
Good sealing of bearings with extra added heavy-duty grease solved that issue.
 
Grease in a processor near a preheat section running at 140 degrees?

Not a good idea if grease gets in your preheat water which is sprayed over your plate surface is it?

I would have avoided that like the plauge. The inner spring in the inner rubber seal tended to get corroded thus causing stress and excessive wearing on the bearing ring and therefore excessive wear.

The Inner seals are pretty cheap but the ring bearings are more expensive.

I would have thought Ring bearings as shafts are involved!
 
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Printservedigital - have you ever heard something like "heavy-duty grease for steam/gas turbine bearings" ?
I used that stuff.
 
Sound like the seals in the bearing housings aren't holding, I've worked on the LS range of kit but not their processors , however I know similar problems occured in Agfa badged "Hasse" Processors.

Bearing seals and blocks were being pentrated by the fumes and thus the evaporates from the bath.

Thank you for the reply. I mispoke a bit, so let me clarify. We got use to just calling them bearings in our shop, but they really aren't. The Bluefin 650 uses POM thermoplastic blocks with a hole drilled into it that goes on the ends of each roller shaft. They call these "bearing support blocks". The problem we see, in both wet and dry sections, is that the shafts are metal and grind away at the block causing the hole to elongate and the rollers to shift position.

The point at which this starts to become a problem for plate travel through the machine is about 6 weeks for us at this point. Before this processor, we had several iterations of Anocoil processors. So far the Bluefins have shown themselves to be more finicky when it comes to roller position and getting plates through.

So far we have tried various materials in attempts to increase the longevity of this part as well as some traditional sealed bearings. None have proven to be the answer at this point.
 
AGFA Autolith T processor had the same issue: long time standing-on of bearing supports and then abruptly a few of them worn out at the same time.
Because rollers pressure should be readjusted time to time, and nobody paid attention on shrinking rollers and just increased the pressure more and more.
New supports were installed but in 3 month the same problem came back again.
Teflon shims made a temporary solution but the problem gone when rollers were replaced.
 
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Hi Mr Holman,

i have worked with bluefin 650 processors, i too had the same problem of wearoff in Roller support blocks made of some thermoplastic. but your blocks seem to be wearing off faster. we take out the rollers during the maintenance & cleaned the scaling/coating deposit inside & apply WD-40 spray & keep for some time then wipe it & put back this helps.
Moreover i have observed that this happens in the Brush Rollers & Rubber Rollers below them. Also in Gumming section Rubber Rollers.
The problem starts with incorrect brush pressure as we keep them in High pressure to clean the plates, i have observed that setting the brush pressure using a spring balance does not work for Bluefin 650.
the problem has considerably reduced after we have changed our worn out brush rollers with new high density brush rollers provided by Krause. the result of these brush rollers is good & we need to keep less pressure which solves most of the problems of Rollers support blocks wearing off , Brush roller wear off, Bearing & seals getting damaged.
 

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