- 5,622
- eMadman
I couldn't think of a better thread title than this. Anyways, here's the story:
Duke calls himself the Rain God. That's nothing. I'm the machine slayer - the bane of all things electronic and mechanical. I have the ability to completely disable or destroy things with the slightest touch and sometimes, the slightest glance. The directors of The Matrix should have gotten ME to play the part of Neo. Those robots, programs, computers, and machines wouldn't have stood a chance.
The past 2 weeks:
For the past 2.5 weeks, I've been working for my parents as a press operator. The first two weeks were spent training on the machines. I learned everything I should have needed to know to operate and maintain them to a reasonable limit. Little did I know that my innate ability to destroy things would come out when the press operator went off on vacation.
My first day going solo, I had a 2 color job running envelopes. Not a big deal since the press operator helped me set it up the night before and even ran a few envelopes with me. Of course, when I tried running it solo, I managed to lose 1000 envelopes due to misfeeds, paper jams, double prints, and the annoying as hell meltdowns. For explanation, a meltdown is when the paper gets sucked into the rollers of the machine and becomes a thick paste from the ink and water on the rollers. To resolve it, you must disassemble the entire head (14 rollers) and clean it part by part. I spent the entire day and most of the following day figuring out why the thing wouldn't feed properly. I adjusted everything related to the paper feeding system twice over. Still nothing worked. OK fine, it wasn't destructive, but it was a hell of a malfunction.
Next few days went by decently enough, but I noticed that the plates I was using on the press weren't very clean. They had a good deal of scratches and the ink coverage wasn't even. I decided to change the developer/activator solutions in there. The uneven ink coverage went away and was replaced by even stronger scratches. It is still almost impossible for me to run anything with solid ink coverage near the middle of the plates. Again, it's ignorable, but it was annoying as hell trying to clean those rollers. The stink of fumes was also pretty damn bad 👎
The **** began to hit the fan on the following friday (2 weeks ago). I was setting up a job and the machine just stopped. Literally, it stopped. I'd push the start button, the motor would whir, but there was zero movement. Zip, nada, none. Nothing visible was wrong with it. I looked it over inside and out and nothing. I obviously had to get the ink off the rollers since they'd be ruined if the ink is on over night. Soooo I began disassembling it. Unfortunately, this was a 2 colour job - meaning I had 28 rollers to clean by hand - not an easy task. After cleanup, we called the technician. He arrived on saturday. 15 minutes and $100 later, we found out that there was a belt way the hell in inside back area of the machine that came loose. The following monday, I was running the machine and all of a sudden, nothing. Not even the motor was movign this time. Turned out that I tripped the circuit breaker somehow.
Everything was running fine till last thursday. I was running a die cutting job on the letter press. You must understand that the Heidelberg letter press we have is a design that's at least 100 years old, and it's still the best press on the market - for reliability (almost zero maintenance needed - just an occasional oiling), and for the fact that it's sensitive to the most minute adjustments. It'll stop for the littlest things. It sounds bad, but the benefit is that once it's running, nobody needs to keep an eye on it. Our particular machine is at least 40 years old, but we think it's closer to 60-70. Anyways, as it was running, the metal plate used to apply additional pressure to the die popped out. That should never happen in the first place, but it happened. When it popped out, a very large piece of it broke and got caught up in the grippers that take the paper. The high speed at which the machine was running and the interference of that rod caused it to seize up. Just a big CLANG and then nothing. It wouldn't respond to anything i did.... until I found that rod jammed up in inner workings. I took the plate out and tried to see if everything was ok. Turned out that the rod completely realigned the grabbers and made the timing of the machine all wonky. We called a friend yesterday who worked these machines for 15 years. He couldn't figure it out. He called another guy to take a look at it. It took us 30 minutes to realign the workings of the machine. We got lucky here. There's no freelance technicians in the Toronto area that work Heidelberg machines. Calling the company would have been $500 per hour minimum.
On the same day that the letter press went crazy, I was doing some cutting on the cutting machine. Now, this is a pretty big machine. It'll go through 1000 sheets of paper like a hot knife through butter. My bro's friend lost a finger to it once. Anyways, I was cutting, cutting, cutting, KZZZZAAAAT. The machine stopped. Nothing in the way, nothing in the gears, and all the belts were in place. The machine just stopped. The circuit breaker was ok and so was the machine's fuse box. Technician came over and found out that it was a loose bolt on one of the pulleys and a worn clutch that caused it. A few readjustments later, it ran fine (other than the clutch which we won't be replacing anytime soon)
While all these technicians were over, I also asked for operating advice since I was having so many problems. One of them even showed me why envelopes weren't working for me. Anyhoo, after the envelope setup, I couldn't get paper to run! It took more than an hour today to narrow down the cause of the psychotic misfeeds and annoying as hell meltdowns, but I found it. Got it set up and decided to put the T-Head on for a 2 color job. Halfway through, I realized that something was stuck to the back fo the plate. The pressure from that thing and the fact that the plate was fastened tight resulted in a permanent dent. Now I have to burn a new plate and set the t head up all over again tomorrow
Now, the non-press related things
I got my laptop 2 years ago on lease. Up to now, it's on it's 3rd motherboard, 2nd hard drive, 2nd battery, 2nd outer shell, 15th windows installation, and it's been in need of a new LCD panel since the day I got it. That's just my laptop.
My camera is just as bad. I got it last August. Up to this day, it's been to the repair shop 5 times for CCD issues. It's also on it's 2nd LCD panel. So far, this has been only the kiddy stuff.
To sum up
If the machines rise up and attack, just give me an opportunity to run them. Need to stop a rival company from producing products? Got a rabid Aibo? Just let me at him. Just get me a job working for them and I'll fix it right up. Need to stop a city's power plant? Just give me a call and my magical touch will create something worse than the previous blackout to hit the east coast.
Seriously though, this is freaking me waaay the hell out. If all the technicians that came weren't friends, we'd easily have had a $1000+ service bill by now - all in less than 2 weeks.
Duke calls himself the Rain God. That's nothing. I'm the machine slayer - the bane of all things electronic and mechanical. I have the ability to completely disable or destroy things with the slightest touch and sometimes, the slightest glance. The directors of The Matrix should have gotten ME to play the part of Neo. Those robots, programs, computers, and machines wouldn't have stood a chance.
The past 2 weeks:
For the past 2.5 weeks, I've been working for my parents as a press operator. The first two weeks were spent training on the machines. I learned everything I should have needed to know to operate and maintain them to a reasonable limit. Little did I know that my innate ability to destroy things would come out when the press operator went off on vacation.
My first day going solo, I had a 2 color job running envelopes. Not a big deal since the press operator helped me set it up the night before and even ran a few envelopes with me. Of course, when I tried running it solo, I managed to lose 1000 envelopes due to misfeeds, paper jams, double prints, and the annoying as hell meltdowns. For explanation, a meltdown is when the paper gets sucked into the rollers of the machine and becomes a thick paste from the ink and water on the rollers. To resolve it, you must disassemble the entire head (14 rollers) and clean it part by part. I spent the entire day and most of the following day figuring out why the thing wouldn't feed properly. I adjusted everything related to the paper feeding system twice over. Still nothing worked. OK fine, it wasn't destructive, but it was a hell of a malfunction.
Next few days went by decently enough, but I noticed that the plates I was using on the press weren't very clean. They had a good deal of scratches and the ink coverage wasn't even. I decided to change the developer/activator solutions in there. The uneven ink coverage went away and was replaced by even stronger scratches. It is still almost impossible for me to run anything with solid ink coverage near the middle of the plates. Again, it's ignorable, but it was annoying as hell trying to clean those rollers. The stink of fumes was also pretty damn bad 👎
The **** began to hit the fan on the following friday (2 weeks ago). I was setting up a job and the machine just stopped. Literally, it stopped. I'd push the start button, the motor would whir, but there was zero movement. Zip, nada, none. Nothing visible was wrong with it. I looked it over inside and out and nothing. I obviously had to get the ink off the rollers since they'd be ruined if the ink is on over night. Soooo I began disassembling it. Unfortunately, this was a 2 colour job - meaning I had 28 rollers to clean by hand - not an easy task. After cleanup, we called the technician. He arrived on saturday. 15 minutes and $100 later, we found out that there was a belt way the hell in inside back area of the machine that came loose. The following monday, I was running the machine and all of a sudden, nothing. Not even the motor was movign this time. Turned out that I tripped the circuit breaker somehow.
Everything was running fine till last thursday. I was running a die cutting job on the letter press. You must understand that the Heidelberg letter press we have is a design that's at least 100 years old, and it's still the best press on the market - for reliability (almost zero maintenance needed - just an occasional oiling), and for the fact that it's sensitive to the most minute adjustments. It'll stop for the littlest things. It sounds bad, but the benefit is that once it's running, nobody needs to keep an eye on it. Our particular machine is at least 40 years old, but we think it's closer to 60-70. Anyways, as it was running, the metal plate used to apply additional pressure to the die popped out. That should never happen in the first place, but it happened. When it popped out, a very large piece of it broke and got caught up in the grippers that take the paper. The high speed at which the machine was running and the interference of that rod caused it to seize up. Just a big CLANG and then nothing. It wouldn't respond to anything i did.... until I found that rod jammed up in inner workings. I took the plate out and tried to see if everything was ok. Turned out that the rod completely realigned the grabbers and made the timing of the machine all wonky. We called a friend yesterday who worked these machines for 15 years. He couldn't figure it out. He called another guy to take a look at it. It took us 30 minutes to realign the workings of the machine. We got lucky here. There's no freelance technicians in the Toronto area that work Heidelberg machines. Calling the company would have been $500 per hour minimum.
On the same day that the letter press went crazy, I was doing some cutting on the cutting machine. Now, this is a pretty big machine. It'll go through 1000 sheets of paper like a hot knife through butter. My bro's friend lost a finger to it once. Anyways, I was cutting, cutting, cutting, KZZZZAAAAT. The machine stopped. Nothing in the way, nothing in the gears, and all the belts were in place. The machine just stopped. The circuit breaker was ok and so was the machine's fuse box. Technician came over and found out that it was a loose bolt on one of the pulleys and a worn clutch that caused it. A few readjustments later, it ran fine (other than the clutch which we won't be replacing anytime soon)
While all these technicians were over, I also asked for operating advice since I was having so many problems. One of them even showed me why envelopes weren't working for me. Anyhoo, after the envelope setup, I couldn't get paper to run! It took more than an hour today to narrow down the cause of the psychotic misfeeds and annoying as hell meltdowns, but I found it. Got it set up and decided to put the T-Head on for a 2 color job. Halfway through, I realized that something was stuck to the back fo the plate. The pressure from that thing and the fact that the plate was fastened tight resulted in a permanent dent. Now I have to burn a new plate and set the t head up all over again tomorrow
Now, the non-press related things
I got my laptop 2 years ago on lease. Up to now, it's on it's 3rd motherboard, 2nd hard drive, 2nd battery, 2nd outer shell, 15th windows installation, and it's been in need of a new LCD panel since the day I got it. That's just my laptop.
My camera is just as bad. I got it last August. Up to this day, it's been to the repair shop 5 times for CCD issues. It's also on it's 2nd LCD panel. So far, this has been only the kiddy stuff.
To sum up
If the machines rise up and attack, just give me an opportunity to run them. Need to stop a rival company from producing products? Got a rabid Aibo? Just let me at him. Just get me a job working for them and I'll fix it right up. Need to stop a city's power plant? Just give me a call and my magical touch will create something worse than the previous blackout to hit the east coast.
Seriously though, this is freaking me waaay the hell out. If all the technicians that came weren't friends, we'd easily have had a $1000+ service bill by now - all in less than 2 weeks.
