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An object that performs reciprocating motion is usually called a shuttle. The shuttle installed on the mechanical equipment can realize the controllable switching of the position and meet many breakthrough functions.
The shuttle can be installed on the multi-color pad printer, screen printer, and hot stamping machine to realize multi-color linkage printing, greatly improving the application scope of special printing equipment in various industries.
1) Realize multi-color overprinting:
The products targeted by pad printers, screen printers, hot stamping machines, and thermal transfer machines are mainly various injection molded products. Usually, these products need to be printed in multiple colors, and the multi-color printing of pad printing and screen printing requires the use of different types of inks, and hot stamping machines require hot stamping foils of different colors. In the current state, pad printers, screen printers, and hot stamping machines cannot complete multi-color printing almost simultaneously like printers, but must adopt a color-by-color intermittent step, so installing a shuttle is almost their original design idea and inevitable choice.
The shuttle is similar to a platform carrier. The designer will fix the product on the carrier. The carrier is controlled by the drive system to switch positions between different printing color units. Each time a position is switched, a color or a position is printed. Many users require 10 or even 15 colors to be overprinted, and the shuttle must have the corresponding position switching capability.
2) Control of the shuttle
The shuttle was initially controlled mainly by pneumatic control, that is, a cylinder was controlled by a solenoid valve, and the movement of the cylinder piston would determine the position switching of the shuttle. Pneumatic control has obvious advantages in position changes with low quantity and low space, and the cost is very low. The initial small pad printing machine adopted this control method. However, as the number of printings required by pad printing machines continues to increase, and the printed products are getting larger and larger, the limitations of pneumatic control systems are becoming more and more obvious: insufficient accuracy, lack of adaptability to complex product shapes, and poor stability. In particular, the distance between each printing unit of screen printing machines and hot stamping machines is large, and it is difficult for pneumatic control systems to achieve position switching with a large stroke.
In view of this, the control of the shuttle has increasingly adopted servo systems in recent years.
The servo system is a structure that uses a servo motor to connect a lead screw to drive the shuttle to achieve instantaneous and precise position switching. It can realize the shuttle's stay and movement at any specified position and between strokes, and its position accuracy is greatly improved.
As the product printing position is increasingly limited to a specific position, installing a servo system with a rotation function on the shuttle will make the pad printer more powerful. Pad printers with two, three or even multiple servos have been enthusiastically sought after by the market in recent years. Considering that screen printers and hot stamping machines have poor adaptability to complex-shaped products, multiple servo systems are not as widely used as pad printers.
3) Installing a robot
Although the servo-driven shuttle pad printer is powerful, it is constrained by the complexity of its movements, and its speed is difficult to increase and it is also complicated to adjust. The labor intensity of workers is high. In some large manufacturing companies, integrating the shuttle pad printer with the original production line is also part of the automation trend in recent years. The loading and unloading ends of the pad printer are specially equipped with robots to greatly reduce the degree of human intervention in production. Adding a robot is also very useful for automated screen printing machines and hot stamping machines.