Press design

[Alex Arriaza]

I haven't been in this industry for long, but i felt in love with it, the process is so "simple and reliable" at least on paper..... when i first saw a Heidelberg with the whole prinet and all the star series on including technotrans and all the deal i thought "what a complex system and how hard would it be to understand it all" so i walked to a AB-DICK from the 70s or 60s who really knows, and started to understand how beautiful the process was meant to be.

From what ive seen we haven't found a solution a real solution for a good printing, we only found cover ups to the problems, i dont think Alois Senefelder was thinking in such a complex process as the one we have today when he started designing the press, how can we start finding real solutions for our problems? as a mechanical engineer it is so frustrating to know that the process can be so simple and yet reliable but i dont have all the tools "years of experience" im interesting in starting a project, a colective project in which all of us can be beneficed i want to start a designing project that can help us know were things started to go wrong so we can correct them if someone is interesting in helping me out, send PM.
And remember the simpler the design the better.

Thanks
AA

 

[Frank Rieder]

Alex,
What exactly are you trying to do? Design a press?

 

[Alex Arriaza]

Not exactly, im trying to go to the basics, with out the whole "solutions" we have on the presses now, im trying to understand the design of the actual presses so we can make a judgement on it and try to find a good solution, for example, the roller trains on presse why they have that design etc. thats the kind of things im trying to understand so we can have better solutions to our problems.

 

[Frank Rieder]

Alex,
Sounds a bit like reinventing the wheel.
To most of your problems, you will find solutions online.

 

[Alex Arriaza]

i dont see it like that, i dont want to go and make a press, even tho it can be done i dont have the resources to make it, what im trying to do with this is to really understand what is going on in a offset press, but from reliable sources and scientific understanding of the process.

 

[CD102]

Have you tried contacting the manufacturers of different presses?

 

[RGPW17100]

I started with an ab dick 350 shoot and ran various models. These machines were xerox machines before copiers exixsted. They were simple but required talent to keep them from feeding doubles. The roller trains could not handle solids nor could the plates and dampening systems we used. I currently run a SM52 5 color with coater with pre inking software, a QM46 and an AB Dick 9810. If you want to run A2 enveolpes you run the AB Dick if you run letterhead or flyers with big solids the AB Dick is a poor choice. Over the years Press Manufacturers have kept adjusting machines to accomplish printing ease and the ability to print higher quality. SM52 has a suped up roller train that reduces ghosting and has big form rollers to handle solids, All the bells and whistles on this press allows the operator to run as many as 4 four color runs in an hours. This could never be done with a GTO. In general presses became so complicated because the need to turn high quality work fast increased astronomically and also making the machines easier to run so that experienced press operators were no longer needed.

 

[machineguy]

Custom Press Guy

Custom Press Guy

Hi Alex
I have been in the printing and printing related business for 38 years , I have done everything, from being a full color printer, to owning my own shop, I went on to servicing , now I own a custom machinery business, i do a lot of work in the lottery and Bingo printing business also in the poly bag industry. I think I can answer almost any question related to web and sheet fed, I have designed and build several full printing lines...let me know if I can help
Martin Dawson
dawson-machinery.com
702-542-7849