Ryobi 3302 image perpetually crooked. Help?

[lantz_xvx]

Hey everyone,

I'm back with some basic Ryobi 3302 troubles. I've got a ten month old kid so I'm super part time at the shop right now, which means that I don't have a lot of solid blocks of time to really figure the press out the way I need to.

Right now I'm struggling with image crookedness. I'm running 130# uncoated cover stock cut to letter size. The paper is cut square, and I'm using poly plates.

I mount the plates according to the measurement guides on the cylinder, so if those two measurements match, the image should be pretty straight, right? But it's skewing toward the OPS, so it seems as if the problem is in the feed / registration.

I have to trim the plates a little bit to go through the HP5500, so it's possible that when I trimmed them, the blade was slightly out of adjustment and the plates were not totally square. Would that make the image EXTREMELY crooked, though?

Or is the side guide hitting incorrectly? Maybe it's pushing too far, and hitting too hard, so that it skews the sheet? Would there be any sort of mechanical issue that would cause this? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
- Lantz

 

[NotAGooner]

You can always check if it's a guiding or bouncing problem by scribing side guide marks and headstop marks on the edge of the sheet, I appreciate that it's already cut to size but just do it as a test on some other stock and then delete the marks once you have ascertained where the problem lies.

 

[ziggy33]

if your plates not square yes it will be some extreme crookedness once in awhile, your side guide could be out of square as well just bring your paper up to the stop fingers and make sure your squared up.

 

[lantz_xvx]

Hey guys, thanks for your replies. It actually ended up being something super idiotic. It turns out that the spring side guide that holds the stack in place was, in fact, nowhere near it. It must have jimmied loose when I lifted that mechanism to load paper. So it was feeding the sheet crooked, but I hadn't realized it until I stood behind the feed board and looked at it dead on. Once I fixed that and the paper was traveling down the table straight, I adjusted the side lay push guide again, made a couple of very minor diagonal adjustments on both plate cylinders and everything is fine.

Another couple of unrelated, minor questions though:

1) Is there an easy way to take off the ink fountains? I think there's a lot of old dried ink built up around the keys and that causes problems sometimes.

2) Anyone know how to adjust the IR dryer? The tech showed me the screw I have to adjust, but it's hard to see and I'm not sure which way to adjust it. He said to turn the dryer on, feed a sheet of paper until it's just over that sensor and adjust it until the dryer turns on. I haven't had much luck with that though. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks again,
- Lantz