slinging ink on barriers and waterpans inking up

[gapressman]

Hello everyone im new to this website. I was looking for some answers as why we are slinging on barriers. Im on a XL 105 10 color. We are using superior ink running at 1500. We have only had it for 6 months and it did it from the beginning is this normal for this press or is there something I can do to stop it. Ive tried to change the skew and put different waterpans in. Can someone give me any ideas i can try?

 

[UKPrintMan]

First thing that comes to my mind is that the ink seems to be emulsifying way too much especialy if its floating in the water pans. You will need to check your fount solution ph (i run at 5.0) and conductivity and match it to the ink recomendations, solve that, and you may solve the slinging problem too. I dont use a big press and dont use the same inks so my settings probably wont work for you but i am sure others using a similar setup can expand on what i have said, If my guess is right that is

What fount do you use? is it a buffered fount, Do you use RO or Tap water? do you use alcohol?

 

[nagrom]

Hello everyone im new to this website. I was looking for some answers as why we are slinging on barriers. Im on a XL 105 10 color. We are using superior ink running at 1500. We have only had it for 6 months and it did it from the beginning is this normal for this press or is there something I can do to stop it. Ive tried to change the skew and put different waterpans in. Can someone give me any ideas i can try?

Hello Gappressman.
It sounds to me like you are running with either an alcohol free metering roller with alcohol fount or the other way around, this would definitely give you this problem. For alcohol free the metering roller is much softer and carries a lot more water, it almost absorbes water into the rubber.

Best Regards

 

[Mike Herndon]

We had the same problem while running Superior inks in our SM102’s. Particles of ink would be floating around in the fountain solution and the ink would be slinging and misting everywhere. We would also get picture framing on the blanket and back cylinders causing a big mess. It took us a while to eliminate the problem and we never got rid of it completely with the magenta. Most of the problem was the alcohol sub breaking down the ink. We lowered our solution mixture from 1.75oz per gallon to 1.5 and that helped. We then raised the temperature of the printing units from 75F to 80F. Surprisingly this helped quite a bit, you’d think a lower temperature would work better but in our case we saw less misting with a higher roller temp. The ink was more stable allowing the pressman to use less fountain solution. Finally we had Superior change their formula for our shop. They ended up making there inks with a “heavy body” vehicle system. All these things combined pretty much eliminated our problems except with magenta. Our SM102s run at 13 all day long, the XL running at 18 could make the problem a little trickier to solve.

Mike

 

[gapressman]

First thing that comes to my mind is that the ink seems to be emulsifying way too much especialy if its floating in the water pans. You will need to check your fount solution ph (i run at 5.0) and conductivity and match it to the ink recomendations, solve that, and you may solve the slinging problem too. I dont use a big press and dont use the same inks so my settings probably wont work for you but i am sure others using a similar setup can expand on what i have said, If my guess is right that is

What fount do you use? is it a buffered fount, Do you use RO or Tap water? do you use alcohol?

We are using Rycoline and I believe it is buffered and also using tap water. Our mixture is 1.8 ounces of alcohol sub and 2.4 ounces of fountain solution per gallon.

 

[Mike Herndon]

We use Rycoline too in our SM102’s with vario, our settings when we where using Superior:
Fountain Concentrate- Rycoline Green Diamond 251, 2.0 oz per gallon
Alcohol Substitute- Rycoline Redux 6000, 1.5 oz per gallon
Conductivity 1700 when fresh, 3000+ when dumped, RO water.

We’ve only seen this problem with Superior and it's been 3 years since we used them.The alcohol sub breaks down the pigment Superior uses to make their inks. At the time, Superior made and specified their own pigments (most ink companies buy pigment from suppliers). We tested several different alcohol substitutes and never found one that worked better than the Rycoline (for our shop, every shop is different). We then shifted our goal to run the least amount of sub as possible, without putting to much dampening solution to the plate and eliminating our run window. This is when we started to experiment with roller temperature and what not and found a nice balance. Superior then switched the vehicle system to a heavy body. This helped because it allowed us to carry a better (more) ink film on the roller train to the plate giving us a wider window to run in and enabled us to use even less dampening, without changing the color of the ink.

There was no magic quick cure to fix this problem. It’s a combination of the ink, temperature and chemistry not working together causing the ink to break down. What was real frustrating for us is once we finally had everything settled down and printing well Superior doubled their pricing. We had to drop them as an ink vendor and go to someone else.

Mike

 

[Mike Herndon]

One more thing- you can send the ink out to a lab and have them do a pour off test. Basically they take a half pound of ink and mix it with 50ml of the chemical in question- either alcohol sub, fountain concentrate or both. Once it’s mixed to the lab specification they pour the solution off, the sub and concentrate should be the same color as when you started (green, clear whatever). They should not be contaminated with any ink.

A crude but sometimes useful test is to do the same thing press side with a plastic cup, dab of ink and 16 oz of fountain solution or alcohol sub. Mix them together then let the solution settle. You’ll see ink pigment floating in the chemistry if they’re reacting against one another.

Mike

 

[D Ink Man]

It would be recommended to try a different ink series from another supplier. I have personally seen this slinging, misting situation with contamination of the dampening system and fountain resrvoirs with the ink you mentioned. I have seen it at multiple printers, most notably on higher speed sheet fed equipment such as the Heidy XL105, when running over 14,000 iph. If you want a professional recommendation for an alternate series, I am here to serve.

 

[Paultheprinter]

hi,

i find most presses sling/mist over 13k and there is no real soloution to this although some manufactures do sell products aimed at reducing this. On press soloutions are to my knowledge few and far betwen, the only soloution is to up the water to lenghten the strands of ink and to stop them form breaking and flinging onto tie bars etc (i think its called floculation) but this particular problems seem to be more centred around the relationship between the ink and the fount, if i get ink and water mixing to the point you create an oil in water emulsion and you get pigments floating in troughs then the first thing i do is drop concentrations of additives and reduce roller nips and chek temp, i find theres usually a hint or two to exploit and track down the cause.

Paul

 

[gapressman]

slinging ink on barriers

slinging ink on barriers

Hi we are using superior ink and they are probably our safest vendor. So i'm sure we will not go with another ink. Heidelberg told us that our XL is considered a web press and u will not get it to stop. I just dont believe that. We sent our ink and water to lab and they said it was pretty good. I went to Heidelberg and they had a different waterpan roller in there 105 It was like a plastic roller. They are around 1500 bucks a piece. All the rollers are set every week and not all the units sling. We tried to up the temp on rollers and tank but ran into more calcium problems on rollers. The waterpans are banding bad. We are using Rycoline fountain solution. Is there a another fountain solution out there that we could try?

 

[REYES1377]

Forget every thing you know about Superior ink. It's not made to run with the speeds of the XL. You need a ink that is rated for 20,000 IPH. Best combo for this press is Toyo Ink and Prisco 3451U 6000 Alkaless.

 

[Bob Peterson]

What Superior set are you running? The ink that is designed, tested, and approved by Heidelberg for the XL press is the Biolocity M/T series.

I will agree with REYES1377 on the Prisco 3451U & Alykaless 6000. If you are running RO water I would recommend that you mix 4.0 oz etch and 1 oz sub per gallon.

 

[D Ink Man]

The Heidelberg consumables include the Saphira ink process line. Guess what? It is 'Superior' ink that is a relabel. It is of my firm belief that a company that supplies a consumable product to a lithographer should only supply that type product. This can include ink, fountain solution, plates, blankets, etc. It is the job of these suppliers to develop a behind the scene technical relationship with each other to meet the needs of perfecting the litho process. This work should be mostly transparent to the printer. The suppliers that form this inter company endeavor are the most likely to succeed and be profitable as the future becomes the present. Let the consumable suppliers stay focused on what they manufacture and supply. When this happens, the printer customer will naturally evolve into the proper materials for his equipment because of success through runnability, printabilty and real profit. Sometimes the accountants have trouble measuring this, but it will end up on the bottom line. Many times paying more and getting more is the best. It is a difficult measurement to caculate on the surface. Hopefully this force feeding and bundled packaging arangements can cease. Draw on the individual expertises!

 

[MikeG]

Are you running the dampener integrated? I haven't found a process ink that doesn't emulsify and build up at any speed on these presses. When I first got my SM I tried running that way because the book says it's better, but was never able to. Not to hijack your thread but if you are running integrated and having issues, just wondering if others are running that way and are successful?

Also, it's come up before on this forum but worth repeating, make sure the forms are not oscillating unless you need them for a spacial job, which is almost never.

All the Best

 

[Paultheprinter]

also sorry to hijack this thread, appolagies for this sounding like im questioning your experience but sm run so much better with the link in ,even metalics run ok to a certain degree. The most common problem i find is people not selecting the correct setting on the cpc due to it being unclear, on the cp2000 its better but most people ive spoken to tell me they dont run intergrated and they do or they set the z so when you go to autoproduction and the dampeners drop on the z roller is stationary only when you tell them to set it correctly including the first form do they appreciate the system and reep its benefits.
When the system is unlinked i get a build up of wet ink in the damping form and steel roller which tends to cause a blast of ink on start up or i get roller ghosting for the first twenty sheets or so untill the ink is released into the ink train. But i do understand most factories/ print works even next door to each other with the same machines and similar chemistry cause different sets of problems and different cures.

paul

 

[kheslin]

Heidelberg Consumables

Heidelberg Consumables

We have an XL105 which was installed in Jan 2008.

We just converted to Heidelberg's Saphira fountain solution, previously we were running Prisco. We have been running Toyo HyPlus 100 inks since the press was installed. With both combinations we have had very little slinging and misting.

Dampening rollers are also an integral part of the equation.

The Prisco fountain solution and etch was rather aggressive on rollers and dosers in the Technotrans mixer.

Thus far, we've been pleased with the Heidelberg fountain solution and feel that it gives us a larger "window".

Whatever ink system and foutain solution you run, you have to understand that these high-speed presses run differently and have different requirements that the previous generation machines. If you cannot consistently run the machine at 16,000 to 18,000 iph, then you need to work with your vendors to get the issues resolved. One advantage to working with Heidelberg on fountain solution (and ink) is that they have a vested interest in finding a solution, and they have the resources to get the problems identified and resolved.

Bottom line, at 18,000 iph, everything matters and cutting corners to save a nickel will cost more in the long run. This press is a highly tuned sports car, not a family car, and requires high quality and consistent consumables to realize the machine's potential.

 

[Mike Herndon]

also sorry to hijack this thread, appolagies for this sounding like im questioning your experience but sm run so much better with the link in ,even metalics run ok to a certain degree. The most common problem i find is people not selecting the correct setting on the cpc due to it being unclear, on the cp2000 its better but most people ive spoken to tell me they dont run intergrated and they do or they set the z so when you go to autoproduction and the dampeners drop on the z roller is stationary only when you tell them to set it correctly including the first form do they appreciate the system and reep its benefits.
When the system is unlinked i get a build up of wet ink in the damping form and steel roller which tends to cause a blast of ink on start up or i get roller ghosting for the first twenty sheets or so untill the ink is released into the ink train. But i do understand most factories/ print works even next door to each other with the same machines and similar chemistry cause different sets of problems and different cures.

paul

We run our SM's both ways depending on the job, 90% we're integrated but once in a while you have that weird job that runs better deintegrated. On long runs we see the same thing when running deintegrated; build up on the metering roller and water pan. I agree most operators haven't been trained on how to set the intermediate (z) roller and when running use the integrate/deintegrate improperly.

Mike

 

[Paultheprinter]

i must agree that alcolour is sensitive on long runs, we run direct mailing shit all day long and some sm`s cope better than others but you can optimise for your situation. we have a two colour which struggles and another two colur on the same water circulation circuit which never misses a beat. Must be something a miss somewhere but its not obvious as yet.

Paul