EP0438552B1 - Device and process for carrying out application operations - Google Patents

Abstract

PCT No. PCT/AT90/00077 Sec. 371 Date Apr. 11, 1991 Sec. 102(e) Date Apr. 11, 1991 PCT Filed Jul. 31, 1990 PCT Pub. No. WO91/02650 PCT Pub. Date Mar. 7, 1991.An apparatus and a process for printing, coating or dyeing of webs of material including an application element applying the substance to and magnetically pressed against the web or the stencil, the position of the element is manually set during experimental or short yardage production to the desired values and these values are maintained in the large-scale production, the application element is movably mounted on a support beam so that a distance and angular position with respect to the support beam are modified and controlled.

Description

In practice, there are very different requirements when carrying out patterning or full-surface finishing processes on sheet-like material, namely differently both with regard to the quality of the goods and the process requirements, and differently with regard to the lengths of the piece to be produced.

There are types of production in the textile finishing industry in which only small piece lengths can be produced, e.g. Printing material for ties. There are also types of production with order sizes of a few 100 meters and there are also large orders of several 1000 or 10,000 meters each, which are to be produced with the same process engineering settings or the same order results as desired.

A e.g. In textile printing practice, there has always been a requirement for the so-called retirement of a new design in different color combinations on the shortest possible pieces of goods. A large number of such short sample pieces are usually selected as the basis for large orders.

In practice, there are considerable difficulties in the process of converting small pieces produced according to the sample to large-scale production, for which there are as yet no processes and facilities that fully meet the requirements of practice. It is an object of the present invention to remedy the deficiencies described above, and this invention has also succeeded in generally increasing the quality level of stencil patterning and refinement processes that apply over the entire surface.

Two of the currently existing difficulties in converting small-scale production or patterning to large-scale production are particularly noteworthy: the technology of ink or substance supply and the application or doctor blade technology.

When producing short sample pieces or small and small-scale production, it is customary or necessary to feed the printing inks to the application point by hand, i.e. to specify the squeegee. Automatic feed systems are common in large-scale production. The situation is similar with the doctor blades for sample and small production purposes. For faster handling and to achieve short changeover times, simple manual application devices are preferred; in large production machines, doctoring devices that are more difficult to handle or to assemble are used. The above-mentioned differences in ink supply and doctor blade technology almost always result in serious quality differences in the sampling or finishing result.

The practitioner often has great difficulty in converting the sample pieces presented to him for the large-scale production into the large-scale production in all quality criteria. Often, all ink concentrations, ink viscosities and doctor blade settings have to be redesigned for large-scale production because the parameters that are decisive for the patterning are not transferable. The development of the new, practically valid parameters is usually very labor-intensive and time-consuming and very uneconomical due to the associated downtimes of large production plants. Elaborating the results true to the template usually also results in considerable loss of goods and substances to be applied. There is a relatively high proportion of rejects and reduced quality production.

Some printing and finishing companies even dispense with the technically and economically correct option of small samples by using their high-quality large-scale production systems for sample purposes and thereby avoiding the above-mentioned implementation problem (at the expense of profitability).

Expanding the idea of the invention, it has been possible to use an ink feed device which can be operated manually or is simplified in terms of handling and cleaning, even in large production machines.

According to the invention, there is now also the possibility of transferring setting values which have been worked out using the setting method or embodiment variant "pivoting the doctor blade bar by axially rotating the support bar" (sample, small-scale production) to the setting method or embodiment variant "pivoting the doctor blade bar by changing the distance of the Tragholmes to the order area "; the same transferability also exists in the reverse order.

• 1. Reproduzierbarkeit bzw. Übertragbarkeit mit der gleichen Einrichtung bzw. gleichen Ausführungsform, wie z.B. für Wiederholungsaufträge und sogenannte Coloritänderungen (Abdrucken mit der gleichen Schablone, nur mit anderen Farben);
• 2. Übertragbarkeit händischer in mechanisiert bzw. automatisiert erfolgender Einstellung;
• 3. Übertragbarkeit von der Einstellungsart "Verdrehen" auf die Einstellungsart "Distanzveränderung";
• 4. Übertragbarkeit von Arbeitsverfahren "Farbzuführung händisch" auf "Farb- bzw. Substanzzuführung mechanisch bzw. automatisiert";
• 5. Übertragbarkeit mit gleichzeitig erfolgender, mehrfacher Arbeitsverfahrenumstellung, z.B. von Einstellung
  • a) händisch,
  • b) durch Verdrehen der Achse und
  • c) händische Substanzzuführung auf
    • aa) Einstellung automatisiert,
    • bb) Winkeleinstellung durch Distanzveränderung und
    • cc) Substanzzuführung automatisiert.

In summary, the working method with the device according to the invention offers the following options for transferability or reproducibility:

• 1. Reproducibility or transferability with the same device or the same embodiment, such as for repeat orders and so-called color changes (printing with the same template, only with different colors);
• 2. Transferability by hand in mechanized or automated setting;
• 3. Transferability from the "Twist" setting type to the "Distance change" setting type;
• 4. Transferability of working procedures "ink feed manually" to "ink or substance feed mechanically or automatically";
• 5. Transferability with simultaneous, multiple work process changes, eg hiring
  • a) by hand,
  • b) by turning the axis and
  • c) manual substance supply
    • aa) setting automated,
    • bb) angle adjustment by changing the distance and
    • cc) automated substance delivery.

Such setting and result transfers are new compared to the previously known prior art.

If sample or small production prints are made with the large production machines or, which is also very important and occurs very frequently in practice, only three to five stencils are opened over a large area within a high-color design of ten stencils, for example are and have a correspondingly large, expediently automatically controlled ink consumption, while the remaining five to seven stencils, for example, print only small sample portions and accordingly have only low ink consumption, the ink supply according to the invention can be used to achieve a significant improvement in economy. Setup and water savings are also associated with the ink or substance supply, which is simplified in accordance with the invention; the cleaning of pumps and pipes is very water-consuming.

For samples with the manual feed system, the printing ink or substance required in each case can be prepared exactly as required, so that no losses occur. The resulting savings are on average about 5 l / stencil and color. The manually operated feed device also makes it possible to clean the stencil and, if necessary, also the squeegee device in the installed state. The last required color trough is pulled out, then a fresh trough with cleaning water is pushed in, briefly rinsed and cleaned with a rotating stencil and then a trough filled with fresh color is used for the next color setting. When patterning, several different colors can be printed side by side at the same time, by inserting partitions that can be moved into the trough. With a rod attached to it, a sliding partition can be used as a cleaning slide for the trough to save color and water.

So far, not only application devices with a mechanically acting contact pressure, but also those that work with magnetically effected squeegee pressure have been designed to be as rigid as possible. This applies both to the upper part of the device or support beam to which the actual doctor element is attached, and also to the actual doctor device that holds or at least touches the doctor element, such as doctor blade strips in connection with roller doctor blades. While the most rigid designs of doctor blade devices of all kinds have been sought, the device according to the invention is in contrast to this and at the same time also characteristic of the invention, constructed in such a way that a flexible material is used for the construction of the squeegee strip or squeegee holding strip. This with the advantageous effect of adapting the profile strip to the rake element and together with this to the application level or template.

From EP-A 311 728 a squeegee device with a pivotable or changed in height support beam on which a holding element is fixedly known. The support bar is connected here with a profile bar, which holds a doctor element, via the holding element. There is a joint between the holding element and the profile strip, which allows a pivoting movement between the holding element and the profile strip.

Based on the aforementioned EP-A 311 728, it is now proposed in a doctor blade device according to the preamble of claim 1 that the articulated connection between the support beam and profile strip is a sliding joint connection and the profile strip as a result of the pivoting and / or displacement of the support beam around the support line of the doctor element on the web or the template or on a profile bar that holds a roller squeegee, is pivoted about the axis of the roller squeegee and thus its angular position is changed with respect to the application plane, the position of the support line remains unchanged for a given magnetic force.

The invention is characterized by treading a fundamentally new path:
So far it has been customary in doctor blades that the axial position of the doctor element is determined by the doctor device construction; According to the invention, the axial position of the squeegee element is determined exclusively by magnetic force or magnetic devices, i.e. the squeegee device is designed to match the magnetic technology and does not determine the position of the squeegee bar or squeegee holding bar or squeegee element, but only the angular position of the squeegee bar in relation to the application plane. Since only small quantities of material are used in the setting of the setting values, there are no major losses and, on the other hand, cleaning can be carried out quickly without major interruptions when changing templates. The settings can also be made with only one template device, although when processing a long web of material, the templates then work in succession, as is known per se. The setting values found during the patterning with only one circular template device can easily be transferred to the individual template stations.
In the devices known hitherto, not only is the position of the doctor roller, as seen in the direction of movement, determined by a mechanical device, but the axial position of the doctor element is also predetermined by the doctor device.

In squeegee devices that work with a magnetically induced contact pressure, the magnetic force is used as a doctor contact pressure, occasionally also as a subordinate assistant for determining the position, but always in conjunction with mechanical means for determining the position. With the invention presented here, the path is taken for the first time, the magnetic force in addition to the function of the doctor pressure, a second Assign main work function: the magnetic force or the device generating the magnetic force is assigned the work function of fixing the position alone, without using mechanical aids. The axial position of a magnetically pressed roller doctor blade or scraper bar is determined exclusively by magnetic force.

In addition, the device according to the invention is characterized in that another, preferably non-magnetizable or only partially magnetizable part is associated with this exclusively magnetically held doctor element, which, if the doctor element is a roller, about its axis or otherwise about its contact edge and can be pivoted with it.

• 1. das übliche Anpressen des Rakelelementes,
• 2. dessen Ortslagefixierung, und
• 3. Ortslagefixierung und Halten eines weiteren zusätzlichen Arbeitsteiles, der mit dem Rakelelement bzw. der Rakelkante einteilig verbunden ist.

According to the invention, the magnetic force or the magnetic part of the device according to the invention are assigned three work functions:

• 1. the usual pressing of the doctor element,
• 2. its location fixation, and
• 3. Fixing the position and holding a further additional working part which is connected in one piece to the doctor element or the doctor edge.

The connecting parts constructed according to the invention, which connect the magnetically held working parts with parts mechanically fastened or resting on the machine, have only the control function during the operating state for determining the angular position of the profile bar which can be pivoted about the doctor element or together with it.

According to the invention, these connecting parts which control the angular position by sliding contact are also assigned a holding function which does not act in the operating state but only outside the operating state. This auxiliary function of holding, which cannot or cannot be set in the operating state, has the effect that the entire application device - in which the substance supply is preferably also integrated - can be handled in one piece. This simplifies the installation and removal of the device, enables the squeegee element to be brought into the approximately suitable position for the desired magnetic force-induced operating state during installation, and enables also to be able to lift the squeegee device in the event of a brief interruption in operation and magnetic field switch-off (in the position contactless to the application level or template).

The invention is described in more detail, for example, with reference to the drawings. 1 to 3 show the rigid, mechanically location-specific holding strips for magnetically pressed doctor blades. 4 shows an embodiment of the invention. 5 shows another embodiment. 6 and 7 show a squeegee profile strip in two different positions. 8 and 9 are doctor blades with an elastic doctor blade or a pressure-elastic doctor profile. 10 shows a modified device according to the invention and FIGS. 11 and 12 show further details.

Three of the known magnetic doctor devices with auxiliary devices are shown in FIGS. 1 to 3. 1 shows a magnetically pressed doctor blade 1 with a support bar 2, seen in the direction of movement 3, arranged behind the roller 1, either supporting the doctor blade 1 or the ink or paste bead or both.

2 shows the so-called ink jam bar 4 or ink jam and sealing bar, which, viewed in the direction of movement 3, is arranged in the area in front of the doctor blade 1 and the ink 22 or paste in front of the roller, and which, depending on the dimension and location Distance to the application level from the template 5 or web 6), which affects the application process.

• 1. sind diese Geräte nur zweiteilig zu handhaben, was im Vergleich mit einteiligen Geräten den doppelten Handhabungsaufwand erfordert,
• 2. sind die Rakelrollen, je kleiner der Durchmesser und je größer die Länge (d.h. Arbeitsbreite), umso verbiegungsgefährdeter und daher umso schwieriger zu handhaben.

Another known magnetic doctor device according to FIG. 3 shows a double roller arrangement in a cage 23.
This known prior art according to Figures 1-3 is associated with two disadvantages:

• 1. these devices can only be handled in two parts, which requires twice the handling effort in comparison with one-piece devices,
• 2. The smaller the diameter and the greater the length (ie the working width), the more risk of bending and therefore the more difficult to handle.

This handling disadvantage weighs so heavily that in practice most users of such devices do not use rolls of smaller diameters than 10 mm, although for some application requirements doctor rolls with 8 mm or 6 mm diameter - sometimes even 4 mm diameter - would be technologically correct.
This causes some users to switch to doctoring devices of other designs or to buy different machines and devices, which is then associated with further economic and organizational disadvantages.

In Fig. 4 it is shown that the position of the squeegee bar or the squeegee holding bar is determined and held only by magnetic force. The doctor element 8 has a guide 9 in which a sliding pin 10 is slidably arranged. This sliding pin 10 is held by a connecting element 11 which is connected to a support beam 12. This support bar 12 has a trapezoidal cross section and carries round axle journals 13 at its ends. These axle journals 13 rest on rounded brackets 24. By rotating the support bracket 12 in the axle journal bearings 24, the connecting element 11 and thus the displacement journal 10 is raised and lowered and along a circular path 25 moves. This tilts the doctor element 8 around the support edge 26. A second position of the doctor element 8 is shown in broken lines.

One can easily see that this also changes the angle of the doctor element 8 to the template 5 or web 6, which are pressed against the magnetic table 7. Instead of rotating the support bar 12, the pivoting of the doctor element 8 can also be done by horizontal displacement in the direction of Arrow 27 take place.

A trough 14 is provided for supplying the substance to be applied, which can be suspended in a rail 28, that is to say can be inserted. The trough can be tilted about the axis 15 or guided along the trough 16 shown in broken lines. During this pivoting of the trough, the substance 22 to be applied can be brought in front of the doctor element 8. In the case of the relative change in position between the sliding pin 10 and the guide 9, the doctor element 8 is pivoted, as already mentioned, and as a result a working surface 29 can come into action which exerts pressure on the substance 22 to be applied.

5 shows a similar embodiment of the invention as shown in FIG. 4, but here the surface 29 directed against the template 5 or web 6 is curved and a doctor edge 18 is formed on the swivel edge. The doctor element 8 here consists of a non-magnetizable material, but a magnetizable bar 20 is inserted in a slot 21, so that the doctor edge 18 can be pressed against the template 5 or web 6 by the magnetic table 7. In contrast to FIG. 4, the substance supply is formed here. The pivot axis is designed here as a tube 30 and inserted into a profile body 31. In the profile body 31 there is a main channel 32 open against the tube 30, the ends of which open into a further channel 33, from which the substance to be applied then emerges via bores 34. In addition, a baffle or deflection strip 35 can also be present.

In FIG. 6, a guide 9 is again provided in a strip 36, in which the displacement pin 10 is arranged movably on the connecting element. The actual doctor element is a roller 37 which is pressed against the web by the magnet 7. The surface 29 in turn serves to apply pressure to the medium to be applied. At a large angle 38 between the so-called storage surface 29 of the bar 36 and the application surface 6 or the template 5, there is minimal application.

Another working position is shown in FIG. Here, however, there is a small angle 39 between the storage surface 29 of the bar 36 and the application surface 6 or the template, as a result of which the maximum application performance is brought about.

A further embodiment is shown in FIG. 8, but here the doctor element is formed by a doctor blade 40 and in the bar 36 there is another bar 20 made of magnetizable material.

According to FIG. 9, the squeegee element is formed by a pressure-elastic body 41 and the magnetizable mass 42 is formed by a round rod which bears against the pressure-elastic body 41.

The design of the invention according to FIG. 10 is similar to that of FIGS. 4 and 5. By rotating the tubular axis 30 with the profile body 31, which is clamped on in two parts and e.g. is held together by screws 43 or by operating an adjusting nut 44 on a threaded rod 45, the holder 24 can be adjusted in height. A groove 46 is provided for the color exit, wherein the color exit can be directed partially or continuously horizontally or also obliquely downwards. The height can also be adjusted by an electric motor by means of the threaded rod 45. When the device is removed, it stands on the head and the profile body 31 rests on a bearing shell 48 and a channel 47 is provided, into which the remaining paint runs and can be easily removed.

11 shows a rectangular holder 24 with a profile body 31 of this type. Such an embodiment can be used if the possibility of pivoting is dispensed with.

FIG. 12 again shows the lower part of FIG. 10 at different angles (once fully extended, once with dashed lines), which is given by the different height position of the displacement pin 10 on the connecting element 11.

• a) Farbzuführung von Hand aus bewerkstelligt oder
• b) Farbzuführung erfolgend mittels Pumpe, Rohrleitung, Verteilungseinrichtung und gegebenenfalls Steuerungsautomatik, wie folgt,in der Praxis angewendet werden.

The device according to the invention can be in the two variants

• a) Color feed done by hand or
• b) Ink supply using a pump, pipeline, distribution device and, if necessary, automatic control, as follows, can be used in practice.

The design variant (a) is particularly economically applicable in sample and small production machines, the design variant (b) is preferred for large production machines. In addition, variant (a) can also be used in large-scale productions, advantageously in connection with stencils that print only very small sample details and, as a result, have a very low consumption of printing ink or application substance.

So e.g. in a large production machine with e.g. ten circular template application stations, five with the design variant (a) and the other five with the application variant (b).

One of the most important advantages of the device according to the invention is that the doctor devices of the above-described embodiment variants (a) and (b) have the exact same application characteristics and can also be set in the same way, so that not only each embodiment variant (a) and (b) is in itself reproducible application results can be set, but that it is also possible to transfer application values that were achieved in the sample with devices of the embodiment variant (a) to the devices of the embodiment variant (b) and to be able to reproduce them in terms of production.

Because of the advantages described above, the present invention is also of great economic importance.

In addition, it should also be said that the doctor devices together with the angle adjustment devices are installed in such a way that manually or electromechanically developed setting values can also be entered into the computer of an automated production system equipped with doctor devices according to the invention. This advantage is also of great technical and economic importance.

In the embodiment of the squeegee strip or squeegee holding strip equipped with a squeegee roller as the squeegee element, it has proven advantageous to provide the surface of the squeegee roller with a structure.

Designing a doctor blade roller with a structured surface that is continuously supported in a slide bearing-like guide seems almost absurd and contravenes the rules of mechanical engineering.

However, tests have shown that, with optimal dimensioning, the diameter or the diameter ratio and each other suitable material pairing, design variants of this type are functional and that surprisingly some advantageous usage effects can be achieved with these design variants; for example, better adhesion of the printing ink or the substance to be applied to the doctor roller and, as a result, taking a larger quantity of substance into the application-effective area; Likewise, the structuring of the roller surface also increases the ability to take along the traces of application substance remaining on the roller after application and carry them away through the gap or contact area existing between roller surface and slide bearing-like guide.

In summary, it should be said that this unusual additional measure, which is characteristic of the invention, brings about both an improvement in the application performance and an increase in operational reliability.

The invention is not limited to the examples shown, in particular it is possible not to adjust the squeegee element by means of a sliding joint connection, but rather to e.g. subject separately to a translation or a rotation or to change the location at all. The scope of protection of the patent is determined by the content of the claims.

Claims (23)

1. An applicator device for applying patterns or coatings to, or the dyeing of, webs of fabric, for short lengths and/or for large-scale production, comprising a profiled strip (8, 36) which is constructed as or which holds an applicator element (37, 40, 41), the applicator element being pressable magnetically against the fabric web or against a stencil in contact with the fabric web, and comprising a support member connected pivotally to the profiled strip (8, 36) via a connecting element (11), the position of the profiled strip being variable by pivoting of the support member (12) about its longitudinal axis and/or by moving the support member at right angles to its longitudinal axis, characterised in that the pivotal connection between the support member and the profiled strip is a sliding joint connection (9, 10), and as a result of the pivoting and/or movement of the support member the profiled strip is pivoted about the line (18, 26) of contact of the applicator element on the fabric web or stencil or, in the case of a profiled strip movably holding a roller type applicator, the profiled strip is pivoted about the axis of the roller applicator and hence its angular position with respect to the application plane (6) is varied, the position of the contact line remaining unchanged for a given magnetic force.
2. A device according to claim 1, characterised in that the applicator element or the profiled strip (8, 36, 40, 41) holding the applicator element is pivotable about the contact line (18, 26) or a pivot axis in the immediate vicinity of said line by a change of location of the sliding joint connection.
3. A device according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in that the location of the sliding joint connection is variable with respect to the application plane.
4. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the distance between the support member (12) and the application element is variable.
5. A device according to claim 3, characterised in that the sliding joint connection is movable parallel to the application plane.
6. A device according to claim 4, characterised in that the maximum distance between the support member and the applicator element or the profiled strip holding the applicator element is determined by the length of the connecting element (11).
7. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the support member is rotatable about its axis.
8. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the support member is movable with respect to the application plane.
9. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the applicator element or the profiled strip holding the applicator element is formed at least partially from magnetisable material and by the pressing thereof is also held magnetically in the location, i.e. as considered longitudinally.
10. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the applicator element, preferably an applicator roller, is structured on the surface.
11. A device according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterised in that the applicator element consists of a strip having a profiled edge.
12. A device according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterised in that the applicator element consists of a spreader profiled bar, having a circular cross-section if required.
13. A device according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterised in that the applicator element is formed from a flexurally elastic applicator blade of metal or plastic.
14. A device according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterised in that the applicator element is formed by a compression-resilient flexurally elastic applicator strip, e.g. of rubber or plastic.
15. A device according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 9, characterised in that the applicator element is an applicator roller, which is disposed in a recess in the profiled strip holding the applicator element, said recess being similar to a plain bearing.
16. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the profiled strip consists at least partially of a flexible material or a material having low inherent rigidity.
17. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the applicator element consists of a non-magnetisable material and if required is provided with a bar consisting of magnetisable material, in a fragmentary arrangement if required.
18. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the substance supply is provided by a supply device in the form of a bath or trough fixed to the support member preferably so as to be capable of being pushed in or pivoted.
19. A device according to claim 18, characterised in that the supply device is pivotable about a spindle.
20. A device according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 17, characterised in that the support member spindle is constructed as a substance supply tube and has exit apertures distributed over the length.
21. A device according to any one of claims 18 to 20, characterised in that the supply device projects beyond a cylinder stencil on at least one side and allows refiling during operation.
22. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the applicator element and the support member are adjustable at an angle to one another in at least one direction.
23. A device according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the applicator element has a flat or curved retaining surface.

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