Editor’s note: Newspapers & Technology, in conjunction with Perfect Pallets Inc., each month publishes a question-and-answer column aimed at postproduction issues. Topics and associated responses originate from Perfect Pallets Post Press Users Group, a free online user group forum. Membership information and other details about this postpress community, sponsored and managed by Perfect Pallets, can be found at www.perfectpalletspostpress.com.
 

Topic: Conveyor maintenance

? I have a (Muller Martini Mailroom Systems Inc.) SLS-1000a. Lately, I’ve had metal shavings and rubber wheel parts all over the floor and along the main support bars. We’ve had to replace about 60 wheels for the gripper chain, but I know the ones on top are the ones breaking. How do you replace the wheels on the top of the conveyor chain? Any insight is helpful.

Reply: How is the machine mounted to the floor? It appears as if you have too much slop in the gripper chain. The chain should be checked about once a month. If the chain is too loose it can walk back and forth, causing the wear. The tension adjustors by the front of the machine should be the same.

Follow-up: You’re really dealing with two separate issues. On the gripper chain, you’re almost certainly going to have to pull one gripper out. You can do this without pulling the chain out, but you owe it to yourself to take the time to remove this. You’re going to have to inspect the track. Pay close attention to the area where it comes off the pockets (where the chain picks up the papers). If you’ve been running with too much slop in the chain, the underside, the side that faces the floor, may be worn out. With a sloppy chain it’s like hitting the thing with a ball peen hammer all day. If the track is cracked or worn, you are going to really have trouble no matter what you do to that chain. You will need to replace the track. All of this is a big job and will require technical support.

The pocket chain digging into the track is another matter. Go up to the front of the machine, under the main hopper — the big springs that draw tension on the chain. Measure them to be sure they are the same. Factory setting is 3.5 inches. That SLS is in serious need of (the vendor) or some other pro rebuild team coming and looking at it. Make your needs known to the capital expense committee.

Follow-up: It’s been my experience with these gripper conveyers that you go though the entire take-up, keeping proper tension on the chain, then take out two links/one gripper, and start the take up all over. In the third or fourth year the rollers start breaking off the chain. Heavy inspection of the gripper conveyer and all components — especially the sprockets — needs to be done; the only way to do this right is to pull the chain.

Topic: Hall belt conveyor

? I have an old Hall Tru-Trac belt conveyor that goes from my delivery to my stacker. I am having a hard time finding belting that will work correctly on the conveyor. Also I have a stream aligner that is missing a bunch of parts and was wondering if anyone had one.

Reply: You can use belt tracking tape to help belts track where you want them to. The tape comes in different widths and has a rough surface. Just cut the tape to the outside diameter of the roller and apply it. Quipp sells the tape, as do other vendors.

My suggestion with stream aligners is that I prefer the newer types that do not require a motor or any electrical needs. The belt simply winds around a couple of rollers and the movement of the belt is what makes the aligner paddles move in and out.

Follow-up: See if you have a Habasit belt distributor in your area. The belting I use on my Hall Tru-Track is NHB EKBV; just specify the width you’re looking for. I’ve used this belting with good results. For your belt tracking issue, check all of your rollers, especially if you have any plastic or aluminum rollers. They can wear, and can cause tracking problems.

Follow-up: The earlier post is correct, but if you are talking to the Habasit distributor, you will need to specify 10-inch or 13-inch belting.  For example: NHB-10EKBV.

As for tracking issues on the Hall conveyors, the best guy on the planet to talk to is Victor Robinson at Cannon Equipment in LaGrange, Ga. He used to work for Hall and has been working on this stuff forever. His phone number: 706.883.7622.

Topic: Run-outs

?How does everyone handle insert run-outs? By this I mean when you are going to be short of inserts and have been asked to run out in a particular ZIP-code/zone? How do you handle it when you have multiples? Do you use some type of priority system to determine what runs out first?

Reply: Officially, we no longer do requested run-outs. Advertisers are required to send in the proper quantity for the zones they request. If an advertiser sends us a short order and we know in advance that they had a  requested run-out, we would eliminate that zone from the rotation to cover the shortage but we do not change our zone rotation to accommodate run-outs.

Follow-up: Our advertising department is aware of what order we go out the door in. Should they want to run out in a ZIP code other than how we run, I inform advertising we’ll do the best we can, but no promises.

Follow-up: We try to get back to the advertiser with a quantity adjustment. This way they are the ones making the decision. If we don’t hear back or we have to make a call on a short amount, we have priorities set. First, short the farthest physical distance from the business. Second, short rack or single copy sales. It creates more zoning but you can explain what you’ve done and why you’ve done   it. Without something in place for these situations, inevitably, you’ve got customer service trying to answer to the store manger why his paper at home didn’t get his ad. —PT

Follow-up: We don’t change any zone order for a shortage of inserts. If we know we are going to be short on an insert, we let advertising know so that if they so choose they can change the insert distribution to reflect the amount we received. If not, then we go with the original insert distribution and let it run out. We then notify advertising after every run to let them know what we were short so that we can avoid this in the future.

Topic: Drive belts breaking

? In the past three months we have had four drive belts break on our SLS-2000. That’s more than twice the number broken in the past three years. Any ideas?

Reply: You might want to look at the inside bearings that hold the shaft from one hopper to another. We have had problems with the bearings going bad. That would cause an uneven tension, which would also cause the tensioner to bind. We also have had to replace one of our tensioners as we have broken two drive belts in three months on the same 2-box hopper.

Follow-up: Make sure that when you store your belts they are kept flat on a table or cabinet and not vertical. This has caused us problems in the past.  We had the same problem; we wouldn’t break a belt for over a year and then we would replace one and within a week that same 2-box would have another broken belt. We switched over to a wider belt, the Gates Poly Chain G2 Belt, with a part number of 8MGT-4000-21 and a product ID of 9275-1500. Since going to these wider (21mm) belts, we haven’t broken one of these yet.

Topic: Toppers

?Advertising has asked if we do toppers and their requirements. Any help on this subject would be much appreciated.

Reply: Toppers come in many forms. You can pre-package inserts into counted units, then put that on top of a like-counted bundle of papers and strap them together. Sometimes it’s easier to pre-pack Sunday units and top them on Saturday’s smaller paper bundles. Some places take the toppers as bundles to delivery centers and put them together there. Some deliver right to the carriers and they put them together prior to delivery. Some papers print jackets and allow the carriers to deliver them with, not inside of, the Sunday paper.

The big issue for advertisers is whether or not the ads actually get inside the Sunday paper. In some cases, the Sunday topper was delivered on Saturday and the store manager has to deal with customers coming in on Saturday with a “doesn’t start until Sunday” ad.

From your end, your company, you need to determine if the topper is part of the Sunday paper, or, as a separate piece, are you going to pay the carriers to insert it? Toppers can also cause problems with the circulation folks so it needs to be determined what you’re going to do.

Follow-up: When we were asked to do a topper, this was a single sheet that was put on the outside of the paper as it was delivered. This was a piece that normally would have been inserted into the paper, however (the advertiser) wanted this on the outside of the paper in the plastic bag. The ad department charged a premium for this and it was all handled by the carrier through our distribution centers.

Topic: Inserting CDs

? Is anyone inserting CDs, and if so, how effective has it been? Any tips?

Reply: We have run CDs on our (Goss International) 632s. One of the problems we have encountered is they are not wide enough to run through the miss detector and the double detector. We adjust the strippers to put both of them on one side of the hopper (the inside) and run them over the miss detector. Both times we have run them there were not a lot of other problems except keeping the hopper full. We put two people feeding it to keep up at about 16,000.

Follow-up: We’ve run quite a few CDs through our SLS machines. Our only requirement is that they have a piece of cardboard around them so the CD is about an inch back from the leading edge. If they do that, that eliminates any damage to them. We’ve also run them successfully when they are shrink-wrapped with a cardboard. The biggest issue is managing how they’re delivered to the plant.