A student emailed me last night (I got the email this morning) that one of our SP-15s had stopped working in trip. The cylinder hits part of the trip mechanism and will not move. The cylinder moves fine in print. I cannot see any obstruction. Any help to a diagnosis appreciated.
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Katie, now that you have the mechanism freed up, make sure you put some real oil on it. WD-40 may be good for cleaning off dried lubricant and loosening seized parts, but most of it evaporates leaving a waxy film that is better at attracting dust than being a good long-term lubricant.
All, I’m happy to report progress on the Trip issue on our SP-15. What with a very hectic end of semester, I had to put the press problems aside for a couple of weeks, but returned to it today to check out an idea that Fritz had told me about offlist. The spring Fritz mentioned was fine, but just for fun I tried to turn the cylinder in TRIP again, and it was sluggish at first, but definitely moved. I sprayed with WD-40 and it began to move even more easily. I suspect that something had frozen and the first sprays of WD-40 a couple of weeks ago had to work through the mechanism. Anyway, it seems to be working fine now. Whew!
The serial # on the broken press is 22155. I’m guess it must be older than our first one.. If the issue is the spring, what causes it to fail?
Thanks, Paul. I’ll have to look up the serial number and get back to you as we hace two SP-15s now. I do think this one has a coil spring, however.
The serial number for this press is 22182, this indicates that it has the original the cylinder trip design, with coil springs fitted over a shaft. Unfortunately to repair and replace requires a complete teardown of the carriage. I have dones this several times and have the replacement shaft and springs.
The later design with flat, leaf springs, wasn’t introduced until serial number 23925.
Further update: Dave Seat seems to think it is one or both springs inside the trip mechanism. We have to take that apart to check it. Any instructions online for taking it apart? Thanks.
Update: We figured out that the trip mechanism is simply not working. Dave Seat mentioned a spring, but those seems to be intact. Students report that the cylinder moved slowly at first (in trip) and then stopped completely. Moves fine in print.