A video…
This is the most recent press to cross the threshold at The Arm. It didn’t take too much fiddling to replace the microswitches across the back of the press, clean out the control box and get it cycling back and forth, but it is pausing for a full five second count at the feed board (should be .5 to 2.5 according to the manual) and I have yet to get the automatic grippers running. This is my first proper dive into the control box and I am no longer nearly as intimidated as I had been by the jumble of contactors, fuses and wiring hiding in there. I’d love to hear from anyone else with experience messing with these power carriage presses.
Daniel Morris
The Arm Letterpress
Brooklyn, NY
The automatic gripper has a rather large selonid operated unit that is activated for the opening and closing of the grippers. If the wiring is ok, relays, etc., than most likely it is a bad selonid. When these start to fail, maybe in the windings, the unit will have a nasty chatter before total failure. And the design for that selonid has changed and I recall when we tried to replace one some years ago, it wouldn’t do the job. I’ll have to do some research on this.
Congrats Daniels. A new project for this blog is to build a troubleshooting table of common problems with power carriages. Your contribution to this will be invaluable.
I invite everyone with power carriage experience to contribute. To do so please email me via the “contact form”:https://vandercookpress.info/vanderblog/?page_id=116.