363TH Laminator wrinkling jobs

[wetcoastsignman]

Hello all,

We are about ready to drop our laminator off the edge of a cliff into the ocean!

About half the time the laminator works fine, but then the other half of the time we get wrinkling in the media parallel to the rollers, and it is almost always in the last half to last quarter of the job. I've attached a couple pics showing the job and the end of the perf that we tried to laminate. The machine is level, as far as we can tell the tension on the laminate is good, but admitedly, the media is laying loose on a feed table.

We've tried it with and without heat, different media and laminates, short jobs, long jobs, no difference. I've checked other threads and have about run out of ideas of what is causing this.

Any suggestions on things to check?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Is it buckling in the center always? If so too much roller pressure is the cause.

 

[2B]

have you tested the amount of pressure on the wheels?
use a fish weight scale, attached a piece of thin substrate and see how much is needed to pull out from under the rollers
do you store the wheels up or down?

with it happening at the end of the run, what are you doing to keep the tension consistent on the media going into the machine?
at the beginning, the media has weight, as it gets lighter, it will change.
you photo shows the perf "curling" towards the lamination. is it touching before going under the rollers?

 

[wetcoastsignman]

Is it buckling in the center always? If so too much roller pressure is the cause.

Yes, I do believe it is generally in the middle.... will have to try backing off on the pressure, but I'm only going until the crank stops and then not even another 1/16 of a turn....

 

[wetcoastsignman]

have you tested the amount of pressure on the wheels?
use a fish weight scale, attached a piece of thin substrate and see how much is needed to pull out from under the rollers
do you store the wheels up or down?

with it happening at the end of the run, what are you doing to keep the tension consistent on the media going into the machine?
at the beginning, the media has weight, as it gets lighter, it will change.
you photo shows the perf "curling" towards the lamination. is it touching before going under the rollers?

Will have to check how much force is needed to pull through the rollers. This job was run through with the feed (set right between 2 & 3), not pulled through. We store with the rollers up, and as far as we can tell, the media isn't touching the laminate before going through the rollers although on this job, the lam was wider than the media so we were both on the outfeed side lifting up so the excess lam was being pulled off the roller.

I could be no tension on the media as we are not using the media roller. We have the laminator up against a table with the unlam'd job laying flat on the table and then being pulled through. Will certainly have to try that on the next one.

Thanks

 

[Jeff South Florida]

The 363TH is a great machine. I have many of them in the field. The push/pull scale test is for the Royal Sovereign machines. They use spring tension on the sides. You need to get down and check that both the left and right sides are even. Here is a video explaining the procedure.

If the rollers are correct and you are having problem, I would check your pressure. I teel customers bring the roller down until it touches. Then add 1 hour on the clock. Too much will pressure will call problems.