We give below a list of projects, with a brief description, carried out over the last few years in the Printing Industry. As you can see they cover Newspress : Flexographic and Gravure Printing. Most of the applications have been machine upgrades, always involving P.L.C. Control, usually new Drives and quite often some form of Intelligent Operator Interface.
Replacement Drive and Control System on a 9 colour Gravure press for Fuji Seal Ltd
This 9 colour machine was about 20 years old and fitted with relay logic and Japanese Servo Drives.
The maximum design speed was approx 150 m/min, but it was rarely used above 120 m/min. It was fitted with twin turret unwind and rewind stands with tension isolation nip drives between the winders and the print units.
We stripped out the whole of the Drive and Control System and refitted new SSD Drives AC Vector Drives : Vector Motors : Control System with 4 x Mitsubishi PLC’s networked together, plus 2 x Proface Touch Screens for set up and monitoring. Each Unit was also fitted with a small two line display for local control and set up. As the machine was printing a solvent based product the critical area’s were fitted with flameproof or intrinsically safe components and the machine was certified to ATEX standards.
The line was re-commissioned and the maximum speed was increased to 200 m/min. A facility to automatically set up the length compensators was also introduced. The refurbished line has been running for 13 months now and so far has clocked up some 26 million meters of product.
Replacement Control System for an ‘ Ofem ‘ Flexographic Machine
This machine, which was several years old, had 8 printing heads running onto a 2.2 m dia cylinder had suffered fire damage. In rebuilding the machine it was necessary to replace the plate and analux servo drives. It was also decided to upgrade the control system, plus the operator interface. We carried out this work, including the new servo drives, a Mitsubishi A2ns PLC and a 12 inch Proface Operator Screen. The machine was re-commissioned in the U.K. and sold to a client in the USA The machine ran at 300 m/min with PLC controlled auto splicing, at both ends, at full speed.
Replacement Drive and Control System for a Community News Press at Scarborough
We were invited by the Johnston Group to refurbish the Drives and controls for their Press at Scarborough. This included two new SSD Drives 590+ D.C. Drives and Motors : a Mitsubishi PLC System with a 12 inch Operator Screen, plus the various press and reelstand power supplies and auxiliaries. The work was completed over a long weekend.
New Drive and Control System for the Pyramid Press at Ipswich
This job was similar in most respects to the work at Scarborough. The main difference was that electrically it was a new installation connected to a number of refurbished community units. On this job there were two folders which allowed the selection of either, two small presses, or a combined operation, utilising the three new Motors and Drives. Each Folder desk was fitted with a small multi line operator display which gave copy count etc..
Replacement Shaftless Drives and Control System for the Falkirk Herald Press
The Falkirk Herald is a community press with 4 x four high colour towers, 8 x mono’s and two Folders. Originally it had three DC Motors driving a line shaft with a number of clutches to allow various combinations of selection. Pimbo Industrial Design re-engineered the press to make all of the Towers and Mono’s shaftless, each with their own SSD Drives AC Vector Drive - Digitally Locked to the selected Folder. The Folder Drives were upgraded to the 590+ DC Drive utilising two of the original DC Motors. The third motor was kept as a spare. The control system was based on the Mitsubishi Fx2n PLC. The advantages to the press of doing this, was that the selection was much more flexible and very quick to carry out via one of two Operator Screens. All the units being Shaftless, meant that plates could be changed on adjacent units at the same time, with savings in change over times, as well as significant paper saving as the folder is not moved when plating up.
All of the work was carried out over a series of long weekends to reduce any disruption to production.
Replacement Shaftless Drives and Control System for 4 Towers at the Halifax Courier Press
This work was similar to that at Falkirk, in that 3 x Dev four high Towers plus a twin Mono arrangement were fitted with Shaftless Drives. Again the SSD Drives 690+ AC Vector Drive was used, plus an Fx2n PLC. Monitoring and set up was carried out on a small Colour Touch sensitive operator Screen.
Development of the operating Software for the H.R. Graphics ( Hurst ) Reelstands
Rod Wilson of Pimbo I D Ltd has had a long relationship with both the original Hurst Reelstand Company and HR Graphics. He wrote the Software for the original Toshiba PLC’s in the early BS5000 Auto-Paster, and subsequently rewrote this to work in the more modern Mitsubishi FX Series PLC. Following the construction of something like 80 reelstands, he converted the software yet again to work in the latest Mitsubishi Fx2n PLC, also adding in additional software to allow the speed match for the auto splice to operate in the PLC, hence saving a number of analogue modules in the unit.
We have also been involved with upgrading some of the earlier control systems to the later standard.
Supply and installation of an Infeed Tension Control System at Mortons Horncastle
Coupled with the work done for HR Graphics on their reelstands, we undertook to design and commissioning of a dual SCADA system ( P.C. based ‘ Supervisory and Control System ‘ ) for remotely setting up and monitoring the Tension and Side-lay of all the Hurst Reelstands on the new press installed at Mortons, Horncastle.
Supply and Commissioning of 5 New Infeed Drive and Controls at the Barnsley Chronicle
We were involved in the design, supply and commissioning of the drives and controls for 5 new tension controlled Infeed Nips for the new ‘ Tensor ‘ Towers installed at the Barnsley Chronicle.
These used the new innovative ‘ Sprint ‘ DC digital drive with an A.B. Load Cell System. Each set of controls also included a 5” Touch sensitive operator Screen, for Setting up and Monitoring.
Addition of 2 new Coating Head Drives for a Gravure Press at G & A Healthcare
G & A Health care have a 6 colour gravure machine which is used for printing onto aluminium foil, the final product being the backing for tablet blister packs. They wished to add the option of being able to coat the product using either the first and / or the final unit. In order to do this two clutches were inserted into the line shaft with the addition of a Motor and an SSD Drives 690+ AC Vector Drive added to each unit Roll.
In printing mode, the clutches were engaged so that the machine ran as before. In the coating mode, the clutches were dropped out and the new motors and Drives were run in digitally controlled synchronism to the line shaft. The actual ratio running was calculated in the PLC after the operator had entered the Roll diameter. The Operator setting the machine up on an HMI. The correct ratio was then transferred to the Drive via a Comms. Network.
A new ‘ Air Float ‘ Dryer had been installed so a tension controlled Nip was added to give accurate tension control through the Dryer.
Pimbo Industrial Design was contracted to design the Drive and Control system, build the new cabinet and commission the new system once all the equipment was on site. As the machine was using solvent based inks, only flameproof or intrinsically safe equipment was used in the hazardous area, with the appropriate barriers in the control cabinet.
Other Small jobs undertaken
The Installation and Commissioning of an Additional DC Drive at Polestar, Leeds. This involved checking through a third party design, organising the cabling and installation of an additional main drive on a Gravure machine that had had addition units added. Once the installation was complete, carry out final commissioning. The Drive being the new ‘ Sprint ‘ DC Digital drive.
The addition of a PLC plus new drives on a Bobst Lemanic Gravure Press Infeed System. This was a reconditioned machine with old drives and relay logic.
The design, supply and commissioning of the drives and controls for a machine that printed the Vineyard logo onto the top of filled wine bottles. The process was a sort of offset screen print. The machine would run up to about 80 – 90 bottles a minute and was sold to a Vineyard in Hungary.
Pimbo Industrial Design Ltd
Printing