Lately the powered carriage on our Uni 1 has a tendency to return fully and then bounce off the stops, rolling forward again about an inch. This is frequently far enough to prevent the inking system from being properly driven by the main ink roller (cylinder?). It’s easy enough (albeit annoying) to manually pull the carriage back to the rest position.
Any idea’s as to what’s going on?
The only control for the power carriage that functions is the manual forward and return lever, so we have no accel/decel or speed control. It’s on the to do list to get down into the control cabinet and see what’s not working but I’m not there yet.
Thanks!
The bounce disappeared after I spent some time messing with the braking, speed, cycling, etc. I’ve also been cleaning and lubricating. That said, ultimately I didn’t identify a root cause.
a! I’m gonna take pity on ya, this time Tommy: the power light is a common B2A neon bulb 110V T-3 BA9S Base.
But the bounce, a broken spring?
Sheesh, I knew you were going to make me admit publicly that I just needed to RTFM. Crazy how well things work when you actually follow the sequence shown in the documentation.
Turns out the only thing that’s obviously wrong with the controls is the power light isn’t working. Is there a modern equivalent available?
Glad to hear this, but please tell us what the solution was.
Thanks Paul and Ray. All is now well with the carriage travel.
Ray, thanks for the comment. The controls on our carriage aren’t working so the brake knob isn’t functional. Some day though…
Paul, thanks for the instructions (with pictures, even!). I’ll have a look tomorrow and see if the cams and/or spring are faulty
The first thing to do is check the spring in the carriage latch. A weak latch would allow the carriage to roll forward. Replacement spring X-11022 is available from NA Graphics.
If this is not the case, you may need to adjust the limit switch cams on the backside of the carriage. See your manual on how to adjust.
You should have a knob that says “Breaking.” Typically we need to tun the knob clockwise to stop the cylinder before it bounces back. Probably worth it to just crank it all the way and then slowly back off until it stops right at the end of its return.
If this doesn’t work there is a series of plates on the away side of the cylinder that has to be adjusted to increase the breaking. Personally, I don’t like fooling with those.