Bypassing the Vacuum on/off on American Tempo?

[{LG}]

I'd like to try setting our vac to simply run when on, not on/off as it is.

I read that some on here bypassed this feature but, looking inside the front box, I can't seem to track where this on/off is happening to the vac. It sounds like the vac is always on but only sucks air when the screen reaches a certain point on it's flood/downward cycle and stops the suction at the end of the print stroke. I thought I only saw a 'normal' set of hot-neut-ground going to the vacuum motor so this must be some fancy pants signal that controls this? I'm an okay electrician but get quickly lost when venturing into electronics. If someone could post up the basics of how this works it might help a lot of owners of various American clamshells down the road, myself included, we also have a Cameo.

Follow up ?: our vac emits this lovely, high-pitched, super-sonic whine when running, like a vacuum cleaner that huffed a helium balloon...typical?

[ittybittypress]

I haven't done this, so there might be a better way than I'm about to describe. On our Cameo, the vacuum hose hooks into a box that's open on the top and bottom. There's a big metal piece with a hole in it that is the size of the hose. It's attached to a turnbuckle and slides up and down through the box when the head raises and lowers. When the hole matches up with the hose, the vacuum to the table is on, otherwise the suction is cut off.

I imagine you could simply remove the metal piece with the hole in it, block off the top and bottom of the box, and you'd have full-time suction to the table.

[Andymac]

yeah i think the Tempo has a shuttle/valve system too.

clean and lube your vac motor, that might help. you can muffle it. if you are going to run the vac all the time, and have a room away from your print room, you can run the vac in the room and then pipe the vacuum back to the press with 1.5" pvc piping,then flex hose into the machine and the flange. that gets rid of the sound.

[{LG}]

Thanks for all that. I'll check out the shuttle/valve, giver a cleanin' and lubricatin' and consider burying the vac motor under the floor boards. Oh and, yeah, I see that valve on the Cameo but our Tempo has some bizarre wooden box built into the vac setup, need to investigate further.

We tried our first proper run on it last night and got brutalized with ink dry-in. TW 5500 and I even retarded it, which I never have to do and there was only minimal fussing around with adjustments, but to no avail. I don't have dry-in issues printing manually because I flood every time. The Tempo appears to have the flood connected to the lowering of the screen.

Is there some way to get it to flood but leave the screen in the up position?

And, if not, how is this overcome with the dry in issue? My thoughts are running something like a swamp cooler right next to it while printing if there's no way to teach it to flood when resting. Our shop is around 90 deg this time of year, even in the evenings.

[Andymac]

yeah, buy a 'modern' press. they allow you to select either flood print, or print flood.

thin the inks, wet the screen before starting, have plenty of printoff paper handy, keep a mister close by, and print quick.

make sure the squeegee is sharp, this helps keep the screen open by clearing it well.

[{LG}]

yeah, buy a 'modern' press. they allow you to select either flood print, or print flood.

thin the inks, wet the screen before starting, have plenty of printoff paper handy, keep a mister close by, and print quick.

make sure the squeegee is sharp, this helps keep the screen open by clearing it well.

Literally have all of that down pat except the 'modern' press part, thanks though Andy. I was laughing reading that because we really were doing everything 'right' it seems and that blade was brand new, nice and crisp. Well, she might be relegated to printing plastisol transfers then. Either that or I need me some extra retarded ink. Shame because the press is nice, very good shape all around.

I wonder at how folks used these machines with solvent inks back in the day.

[ittybittypress]

It seems counterintuitive to run a humidifier during the summer in Virginia, but that's exactly what I do to avoid dry-in. It's too hot to not run the AC here, which brings the humidity down to about 35% if I don't do anything about it. I get it back up to around 55-60% and usually don't have any problems. I don't retard my ink at all (but I usually use Speedball).

Also, it maybe be worth looking at your squeegee pressure. Tunneling and dry-in look pretty similar.

[Andymac]

what he said.

me I never got decent results with retarder. H2O. Lift your pressure on your flood bar too, so you get a thicker flood, that might help.

W.B. Ink likes 60% RH.

[Andymac]

with solvent inks, retarder paste/retarder. You can slow that shit down till it never dries, and the paste keeps it thick and creamy.

WB is trickier. TW trickier still.

[{LG}]

with solvent inks, retarder paste/retarder. You can slow that shit down till it never dries, and the paste keeps it thick and creamy.

WB is trickier. TW trickier still.

ahhhh, I see. It may well be we can't use these machines with the TW or at least not without major headaches. I might ditch the machines before the ink if that's the case, very fond of the flat 5500 series so far and I'm a quick squeegee pusher. I'm hand printing the run now and it's going smooth as silk. Anyone else using American clamshells with TW? Success?

Itty bitty, tell me about tunneling. I'm 100% this case was dry in but also, being a printing nerd and all, super curious about what tunneling is.