C&P 10”x15” gear noise? - see quicktime link

Hello,

Me again. I have a new motor hooked up and was able to free the locked throw off lever by using a penetrating oil called Kroil. Within five minutes I had the lever moving. A big thank you to Paul Aken for the suggestion. Amazing. You can find Kroil possibly at local hunting stores as it is also used to clean guns or here: www.kanolabs.com
They do not sell wholesale so you do have to dig to find it locally.

Now that the press is running it feels like it might run out the door. It’s very noisy and seems to be making a grinding clonking noise where the large gear cam wheel and pinion meet. There are a few places on the cam wheel where the pieces of the groove bars have broken off but that doesn’t seem significant. My concern is that it sounds completely different then other platen presses I’ve seen and worked on, meaning it doesn’t sound smooth but clunky and loud with a lot of rocking vibration. And, it is going so fast for my current skill speed that I don’t feel comfortable feeding it.

What can I do about the noise and slowing it down? I know i can’t put a variable speed switch on a single phase motor…is there anything else I can do? I have a 6K205 - 1725RPM motor on it that is working with the old pulley system.

Here is the quicktime of the press running with sound:
http://roundrobinpress.com/movs/press_h264.mov

or try this link which is more widely compatible but takes longer to load:
http://roundrobinpress.com/movs/MVI_0223.AVI

I am Austin and would love to find a local person I could pay to look at this in person.

Many, many thanks to all the helpers out there.
shannon
www.roundrobinpress.com

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Updated. Some machine-porn afficianado is going to pick up that movie. It’s like a train in your studio, and dang is it going fast! Sorry I have no insights — it’s so different from the treadle version.

Shannon -

The first thing that struck me as I watched the .avi video was that the press is running far too fast.It appears to be running at about 40 impressions per minute. That’s too fast for the press and too fast to safely hand feed it. If I sped my 10x15 to 40 ipm, and removed the rollers, it would rattle like this as well.

Not only is that bad for the press, but it is also very, very dangerous to attempt to hand feed at that speed until you have many months or years of experience.

Slow the press down to 20 ipm and do not attempt to feed at speeds above 20 ipm. It’s simply too dangerous. I would never let any of my students or employees attempt to hand feed any press at 40 ipm.

Please note that the high speed shown in my web site video was done by the video’s editor. He compressed time for effect. I do not feed at the speed shown in that video. I run my press at 20 ipm or less and recommend that you do the same.

I’ll go and shoot a video of my press running at 20, 30 and 40 ipm and will let you know when I have it available online to share and then you’ll see and hear the difference.

- Alan
http://ExcelsiorPress.org

Shannon -

One more thing - about just how to slow down the press. My press came equipped with the original variable speed motor from 1914, which is set to run on 110v. I’ve had to replace the brushes once and it was an easy task. If you can find one of those (in any condition - they can be repaired), that would be the best solution. If not, the next best thing would be to set up for a constant speed of 15-20 ipm and run it in that speed range. Whether it’s accomplished by changing the motor or changing the drive wheel is another thing. I would NOT recommend constant braking of the motor, since that would likely lead to overheating and could burn out the motor itself.

I’ll be back with more as I consider this issue.

-Alan