Heidelberg Windmill Ink fountain Issues!
I am trying to avoid calling in a Mechanic but will next week if the issue is not resolved.
The issue is that the ductor roller is not transferring ink properly from the ink well to the distributor. It seems to stop right before it hits the distributor and not transfer the ink. It happened last week but snapped out of it and worked for a little while then stopped working again. I know that the other letterpress’s ductor roller seem to slap harder against the distributor and ink well. We tried to adjust the springs located on the left side of the press next to the ink well but could not get it to work properly. I’ve ran out of idea’s what it could be. Maybe it is something inside the press that I can not see? Anything will help and save us some money. Thank You!
So after 4 hours of tinkering around on the press we figured it out. There is a cover on the left side of the press near the air pump. If you take that off you can see where there is a disc cam that will touch all the time. What was happening is that our cam was not touching every time. So we had to loosen the large spring and adjust it accordingly until it touched. Then we adjusted the smaller spring near the ink well accordingly. It took some time and it is still not a 100% because it is constantly inking up now when the ink switch to turn the ink fountain is on. Even if the impression bar is not pulled out. So one problem fixed another created. Print life.
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I believe the ductor only touches the other rollers when the press is on impression, that way if you are not printing it won’t keep adding ink.
Yes it is only suppose to do that when its on impression, but for some reason it is doing it now when it is not. I remember some time ago a mechanic fixed the issue on another press but the part was inside the machine on the bottom I believe. I’ve never actually fixed it myself.