Roller Suggestions

[dancingfox]

I prefer Rotadyne for USA for run ability and performance. Several rubber compouds, and depending on my chemistry will swell less than 5% normally.

They buy SKF bearings direct, and SKF does not sell to many companies direct. Most of the plants I've seen have a good ratio of capacity, low overhead, and dedicated quality team. The major downside is their legacy 1900 computer system.

We just switched over some rollers from our Europe plant to test their Poland facility. Great thing is same compounds from Chicago, IL so I know what I'm getting.

Bottcher is no good in USA. Great quality product, but unless you live right by their plant they can't complete on pricing for ROI on run ability and performance. Another user said Acorn which is really good too, but again not that strategic here in the US, but great in Europe.....Especially in Urethane.

If your shop is within pick-up and delivery of Rotadyne get them in the plant to discuss.

 

[Nielsen]

In Denmark we use Westland rollers for all sheetfed Komori presses. Ink unit and dampening unit, no problemo.

 

[jlind]

Dancing Fox:
Which rollers in the press are urethane? Do these have some particular advantage in performance or price over the usual rubber compounds? Are these the hardest rollers or the soft rollers? Very curious.
John Lind
Cranberry Township, PA
724-776-4718

 

[qaos]

We do the following: a water meter and
moist inker Böttcher, distributors
ink, rubber cheap. Böttcher is by far better
Roll that Rotodyne.

 

[dancingfox]

Rubber / Urethane

Rubber / Urethane

Dancing Fox:
Which rollers in the press are urethane? Do these have some particular advantage in performance or price over the usual rubber compounds? Are these the hardest rollers or the soft rollers? Very curious.
John Lind
Cranberry Township, PA
724-776-4718

I have manufacturing plants that use Urethane for the Duotrol water forms, ductors, and slip rollers et cetera.
M3000 slitter nips, chill nip.

Urethane properties tend to carry water with greater efficencies than rubber. Likewise, Rubber tends to carry ink more efficently than urethane.

Some still use rubber for the harder rollers like slips. Currently, trying to work with my suppliers on consolidation between the various plants and best practices, but things change so fast.

We measure price for both via # of impressions, life expectancy, swelling, and other characteristics for Quality.

 

[kbd627]

re:rollers

re:rollers

Well, I was just posting this as a general discussion to hear people's opinions but I run a 3302. I haven't been printing all that long so this website is great, learning from people with more experience than me (there is no one else in my shop that knows how to print, it's sad).

Jeremy I have an AB Dick 4995 which is the Ryobi 3304. I have water forms and metering rollers recovered once per year by Acorn. Cost is approx $100/roller so $800. for all 4 units. I replace the ink rollers about every 2 years. Syntac sells a kit of all 9 rubber rollers cost $440./unit (suggested retail is $550. but find dealers on internet that sell for $440) so $1760. delivered for all 4 units. When ink rollers go it is apparent in heavy coverage jobs. Even when press is striped properly takes lots of sheets to even out. When rollers are new running within less the 100 sheets fit and color. Yes syntacs my not last as long as others but you get all 9 rollers. So for a press that runs all the time to spend approx $1700/year for rollers is just the cost of doing business.

 

[dana]

Bottcher all the way!

I've used Ryno rollers for the Dampening Form and Metering.

I've also used Diamond rollers

 

[Adaboy]

As long as we're on the subject of rollers, riddle me this batman....
One day, I got some new Bottcher forms in for the Sormz. I was told "to rotate the old forms up into the inker (as idlers) and throw out the old idlers."
Anybody do this? Anybody?

 

[Al Ferrari]

You gota be kidding! They just want to sell you new cores the next time.

 

[Adaboy]

Nope, dat wuz da boss!

 

[Al Ferrari]

Well maybe da boss misspoke when saying "throw out" the old idlers. I suppose on some presses the forms could be ground down to the diameter of the iddlers.

Al

 

[dana]

Adaboy, the Key word is "CONCENTRICITY"

check out
YouTube - Concentricity

Pacesetter is a firm believer in this, and carry a "ready to run" line

-Dana

 

[MikeG]

Jeremy, I've run 3302's for 15+ years they are a nice machine to learn how to print on. Those rollers aren't worth re-covering, the syntac or litho roll products are the best value and will do a great job for you. I just replaced all the ink rollers on 1 unit with syntac for $550.00 @ Printers Repair Parts.

On our Heidelberg SM52 we are using the Heidelberg Saphira rollers for replacement. They are very competitive on price and there is no down time as they ship complete roller and you return your cores.

 

[Al Ferrari]

That's an excellent video. But it does not explain that the center damage caused by the bearing puller is generally due to the puller's cone tip being too small for the center hole on the journal, so that the flat end of the puller's screw end presses unevenly on the journal end, and my "walk" in the process of removing a tight bearing, causing damage to the tapered hole on the journal end.

Solution: have a good machine shop fabricate some "pads" to place between the journal and the puller screw end. The pads should have a small cone shaped hole on one side to accommodate the end of the puller screw and an oversized cone tip to fit the journal (the tapper angle is standard). This will eliminate that source of trouble. Keep these safely protected with the puller and/or with the "special press tools" for reuse every time you need to pull roller bearings.

Al

 

[kbd627]

As long as we're on the subject of rollers, riddle me this batman....
One day, I got some new Bottcher forms in for the Sormz. I was told "to rotate the old forms up into the inker (as idlers) and throw out the old idlers."
Anybody do this? Anybody?

Used to run a sormz and did the same thing. I's a way to only buy forms since same rollers are up in ink train. Don't know about Bottcher but whatever company we used occassionally would have free core specials. We had a skid full of old rollers. Finally they went to the scrapyard.

 

[Printmaster07]

Roller Swell

Roller Swell

Has something changed with the Botcher "Chameleon" roller in the last several months? Our rep says no changes were made however we are experiencing serious swelling issues. Nothing has changed in the pressroom; ink, wash, etc...

We set forms to the plate between 3-4mm and have seen stripes double and even triple after a day or two.

Just curious to find out if others are seeing any of the same issues.

 

[duct maestro]

Im on an XL 105 and we use Westland rollers for the damping system and bottcher for all others we have done 40 million impressions this year genrally running at 18000 iph. I have replaced 3 pans and 5 dampers. No bottcher rollers have needed replacing. However I trialed a bottcher pan and it lasted 2 months. So in my opinion when running at speed a combination of the two works right.

 

[Mike Herndon]

Im on an XL 105 and we use Westland rollers for the damping system and bottcher for all others we have done 40 million impressions this year genrally running at 18000 iph. I have replaced 3 pans and 5 dampers. No bottcher rollers have needed replacing. However I trialed a bottcher pan and it lasted 2 months. So in my opinion when running at speed a combination of the two works right.

Our shop uses this same set up in our two sm102 6color perfectors as well. One machine is new with vario; the other is an older cpc1.04 machine with alcolor only. We easily get 60-65 million out of inkers and 45-50 million out of the dampers. We tested the Bottcher “chameleon” and Westland water pan rollers extensively and found the Westland far superior to the Bottcher. The Bottcher would swell at the 15-20 million mark every time. We’ve used the Bottcher inkers for the last 10 years and they work well. However I have seen a slight drop in their quality lately; we’ve had problems with rollers coming in bowed and warped.

Roller lube is CRITICAL in getting life out of these rollers. The heat from running a unit dry will kill a roller train fast. A roller maintainance program is also important. Febo clean over the weekend, calcium fix wash regularly and use roller lube on dry units. We do a quick check of the roller stripes weekly, the Bottcher inker’s will work well with the stripe on the lighter side. Every 3 months the units are pulled down, side frames cleaned and rollers reset as part of our maintenance program. Following these standards we see 60-65 million out of our inker’s and 45-50 million out of the dampening system.

Mike

 

[Printmaster07]

Our XL 105 is running between 16000-18000 iph. We wash up the press daily and do a deep cleaning and deglazing procedure (roller paste and calcium rinse) weekly. If we shut down for more than two shifts, we also leave the paste on the rollers to prevent shrink/swell issues. Our form roller stripes to the plate are between 3-4mm and check these at least once per week.

Another supplier suggested we get "V" blocks and a dial indicator to check our rollers before we install them. Over the last few months we have seen more and more issues with low spots in the rollers. Luckily we catch them before the rollers are installed in the press. But our biggest issue has been the roller swell and "pitting" on the forms.

Our dampener rollers are made by Rotadyne but we have a Botcher pan and dampener roller we began testing last week.

Thank you for the feedback.

 

[TWrmk]

Ive run with ryobi rollers and with Syntac (Chicago Manifold), ryobi rollers are just too much $$$, ive treated my 4 roller kits very well...Yellow unit 3yrs, Mag.3yrs, Cyan 2yrs and black 2yrs....I Believe it really depends on how much you use each unit, how many color washes you do, how good of a job the rollers are washed or taken care of!
I recommend....Syntac (Chicago Manifold)