Classifications

• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
  • B41F—PRINTING MACHINES OR PRESSES
  • B41F13/00—Common details of rotary presses or machines
  • B41F13/08—Cylinders
  • B41F13/24—Cylinder-tripping devices; Cylinder-impression adjustments
  • B41F13/26—Arrangement of cylinder bearings
  • B41F13/30—Bearings mounted on sliding supports
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
  • B41F—PRINTING MACHINES OR PRESSES
  • B41F13/00—Common details of rotary presses or machines
  • B41F13/02—Conveying or guiding webs through presses or machines
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
  • B41F—PRINTING MACHINES OR PRESSES
  • B41F13/00—Common details of rotary presses or machines
  • B41F13/44—Arrangements to accommodate interchangeable cylinders of different sizes to enable machine to print on areas of different sizes
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
  • B41F—PRINTING MACHINES OR PRESSES
  • B41F31/00—Inking arrangements or devices
  • B41F31/30—Arrangements for tripping, lifting, adjusting, or removing inking rollers; Supports, bearings, or forks therefor
  • B41F31/301—Devices for tripping and adjusting form rollers
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
  • B41P—INDEXING SCHEME RELATING TO PRINTING, LINING MACHINES, TYPEWRITERS, AND TO STAMPS
  • B41P2227/00—Mounting or handling printing plates; Forming printing surfaces in situ
  • B41P2227/20—Means enabling or facilitating exchange of tubular printing or impression members, e.g. printing sleeves, blankets
  • B41P2227/21—Means facilitating exchange of sleeves mounted on cylinders without removing the cylinder from the press

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a variable format type offset printing machine making it possible to produce prints at low tooling costs, able to pass from one format to another with a particularly reduced transformation time and while performing a minimum. waste ink and tablecloth to print.
• Variable format "flexo" printing machines are also known which also consist of a series of printing devices arranged in line, the printing cylinder of which consists of a tube which is easily extractable axially by means of a compressed air system also used on offset machines to change blankets. It is also known that the printing devices used on these "flexo" machines are provided with cylinders driven by independent motors allowing great flexibility during use and making it possible to prepare certain devices for a new type of work while the others machine devices are running then, without stopping the printing machine, restart the new devices and synchronize them so as to ensure a new impression. Of course, such machines make it possible to repackage previously moving devices in order to pass in the same way to the impression of a new job.
• Printing machines are also known which are equipped with offset apparatuses which require only a low tooling cost but which, due to the existence of a mobile counterpart as described in patent US-A-5351616, do not allow not, on some devices, switching from one format to another or changing the printer plate without stopping the machine.
• the object of the present invention is to avoid the various aforementioned drawbacks of the prior art by proposing a format type offset printing machine. variable making it possible to produce prints at low tool costs, able to pass from one format to another, or from one type of printing to another, with a particularly reduced transformation time, which can moreover be a masked time, and by making a minimum of waste of the ink and the tablecloth to be printed.
• the present invention thus relates to a variable format printing machine, of the type consisting of at least two offset printing apparatuses, comprising a frame supporting a counter cylinder against which a blanket cylinder pressurizes a tablecloth to be printed, l printing ink being brought onto a plate cylinder in contact with the blanket cylinder by inking cylinders, characterized in that: - the counter cylinder of each device is free from any rotation drive,
• the arrangement is such that this face is in contact only with the blanket cylinders.
• the plate and blanket cylinders will be provided with means making them removable, and will be of a diameter depending on the format to be printed.
• Each printing device may include subassemblies grouping the elements respectively associated with the inking cylinders, the plate cylinder and the blanket cylinder, which will be slidably mounted on the rails of the frame under the action of motorization elements which will be united with it so that each of these subsets is able to undergo a translation perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the cylinders.
• Each printing device may also include servo means capable of adjusting the position of the subassemblies relative to the counterpart cylinder.
• each printing device may include detection and security means allowing two sub-assemblies to move away from each other when the detection means detect a force. greater than a maximum value determined between their respective associated cylinders.
• These security means may include a control logic for adjusting the offset between them of the cylinders.
• the blanket cylinder and / or the plate cylinder and / or the inking cylinders can be rotated by independent motors electronically controlled between them, servo-control which can be effected by a system of electric shafts.
• the inking cylinders can be driven in rotation by a motor whose speed will be controlled so that the peripheral speed of each of these cylinders is substantially equal to that of the plate and / or the speed of movement of the tablecloth.
• the printing devices may be provided with a single touch cylinder whose diameter will be constant and therefore independent of the format to be printed and which will be supplied with ink by at least four ink rollers.
• At least one of the cylinders will be constituted a removable sleeve, secured to a support cylinder.
• the touching cylinder will, in operation, be held at its two ends by two bearings, one of which will be provided with means allowing it, when stationary, to slip away so as to allow extraction and fitting of a sleeve.
• the mobile support may include at least two supports at one end of the cylinder and complementary support means applying the cylinder to these two supports to keep it there. These two supports can themselves be constituted by rotary elements.
• the mobile support may in particular take the form of a U.
• the additional support means may be constituted by a pivoting lock controlled by a jack.
• Figure 1 is a schematic front view of a printing machine consisting of a series of four offset machines.
• FIG. 2 is a schematic view in vertical and transverse section of one of the offset devices constituting the printing machine, which is shown in the small format printing position.
• Figure 3 is a schematic view in vertical and cross section of the same printing apparatus shown in the large format printing position.
• Figure 4 is a schematic cross-sectional view of the same device shown in the offset position, and the bearings of the plate and blanket cylinders being open and disengaged to allow the axial output of the sleeves of the plate and blanket cylinders.
• the printing machine according to the invention consists, as shown in Figure 1, of four offset printing devices 1 for example for printing in four colors. As shown in Figure 2, each of these printing devices 1 consists of a frame 2 which is easily positioned on the machine and which maintains the different cylinders.
• the device thus comprises a counter cylinder 5 which is mounted free around an axis of rotation 7, this axis of rotation being substantially fixed relative to the frame 2, that is to say that its displacement in the vertical direction n is at most only a few millimeters.
• This counterpart cylinder is an integral part of the printing apparatus 1, and is not changed when changing from one printing format to another. Furthermore, it is substantially fixed relative to the frame of the device.
• the apparatus also comprises a blanket cylinder 9 which pressurizes a sheet to be printed 11 against the counterpart cylinder 5.
• the arrangement counterpart cylinders 5 of the four devices 1 constituting the printing machine and the non-interchangeable nature of the counterpart cylinder with the format cause the web 11 to be distributed in a straight line from the first to the last of the devices to be printed.
• the tablecloth to be printed 11 is fixed, or almost fixed in position, which allows the passage in masked time, from one device to another in order to pass from a given type of work on certain devices, (for example printing in a specific format), to another type of work, (for example a different printing or in a different format) on other devices.
• This arrangement makes it possible to make savings with regard both to the time of passage from one format to another, and the quantity of tablecloth and ink consumed during this change of work, as well as the production in masked time. of certain operations.
• the rear end of the axis of rotation 10 of the blanket cylinder 9 is embedded in a support bearing (end not shown in the drawing) and its front end is held in a U-shaped bearing 8 open at its upper part which is hollowed out in a movable plate 13 retractable downwards, in the rest or intervention position.
• the bearing 8 can be closed at its upper part by a pivoting latch 15 controlled by a jack 17.
• the bearing 8 and the latch system 15 are mounted on a carriage 13 movable vertically, which makes it possible to position it relative to the counterpart cylinder 5 as a function of its different diameters, themselves a function of the printing format.
• the printing apparatus 1 also comprises a plate cylinder 19 which, like the blanket cylinder 9, has the rear end of its axis of rotation 16 which is embedded in a support bearing (end not shown in the drawing) and its end anterior which is held in a bearing 14 in the form of an inverted U open at its lower part and which is hollowed out in a movable plate 21 retractable from above in the rest or intervention position.
• the bearing 14 can be closed at its lower part by a pivoting lock 23 controlled by a jack 25.
• the plate cylinder 19 is mounted on a carriage 21 which allows it to be positioned relative to the latter in depending on the different diameters used. The blanket cylinder 9 and the plate cylinder 19 can thus be easily changed according to the printing formats.
• the printing apparatus 1 also comprises a touch cylinder 27 which is supplied with ink by four inking rollers 29 and a wetting roller 30.
• the touch cylinder 27, as well as the inking cylinders 29, and the wetting cylinder 30 are mounted on a carriage 31 which is vertically movable relative to the frame 2.
• the plate cylinder 19 as well as the blanket cylinder 9 can be of the attached plate type. That is to say, they can be constituted by a base cylinder on the periphery of which is fixed a plate, for example by gluing or by fixing from a system of slits.
• This added plate or blanket can also consist of a thin sleeve which is fixed on the support cylinder by any suitable fixing means.
• This plate or this blanket are removable without, however, the user being forced to dismantle the support part of the plate or blanket cylinder.
• the front bearing door plate moves downward with regard to the blanket cylinder 9, and upward with regard to the plate cylinder 19, after having causes the latches 15 and 23 to switch to the open position by means of the respective cylinders 17 and 25.
• the cylinders are only held in cantilever by their respective rear bearings.
• the user has access to the sleeve or to the thin plate depending on the cylinder considered and can extract them axially from the cylinder-carrying part, in order to replace it with another suitable plate or blanket or another sleeve of different format.
• the rotation of the blanket cylinder 9 and the plate cylinder 19 can be ensured, as well as represented in FIG. 2, by a common drive system ensuring synchronization between them of these two cylinders and which is constituted by pinions 32 and 33.
• the inking rollers 29 are driven by a motor whose speed is controlled so that the peripheral speed of these inking rollers is substantially equal to the peripheral speed of the plate and of the web to be printed.
• Each device is provided with means allowing, when the blanket cylinder is no longer in contact with the web 11 to be printed, to be slowed down and stopped independently of the rest of the machine, in other words of the other printing devices.
• the device After the replacement of the desired elements, namely the plate and / or the blanket and / or the contactor, the device can be accelerated and synchronized in speed and position relative to the rest of the machine so that when its blanket cylinder is put under pressure with the ply 11, the assembly is in perfect synchronization.
• the offset printing apparatus will comprise a single touch cylinder composed of a tube covered with flexible coating mounted on an axis easily extractable axially by an air cushion system. between its inner surface and the outer surface of its axis.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Rotary Presses (AREA)
• Inking, Control Or Cleaning Of Printing Machines (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=30129571

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (6)

Families Citing this family (5)

Family Cites Families (15)

• 2002
  • 2002-07-31 FR FR0209721A patent/FR2843070B1/fr not_active Expired - Fee Related
• 2003
  • 2003-07-31 JP JP2004525505A patent/JP2006501083A/ja active Pending
  • 2003-07-31 WO PCT/FR2003/002428 patent/WO2004012941A2/fr active Application Filing
  • 2003-07-31 AU AU2003278210A patent/AU2003278210A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2003-07-31 EP EP03766431A patent/EP1525095A2/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2003-07-31 US US10/522,808 patent/US7377216B2/en not_active Expired - Fee Related

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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