M&R, Roselle, Illinois, has debuted the Gauntlet 4, the company’s newest, high-production carousel automatic screen printing press.
The Gauntlett 4 features printheads driven by variable frequency-controlled electric motors. The printheads contain calibrated, tool-free, click-stop off-contact settings for fast and accurate screen leveling. The press includes versatile tool-free front and rear print-stroke adjustment. Pneumatic screen clamps facilitate rapid screen loading and deliver excellent stability on a wide variety of screens. M&R’s Laser Locator System speeds pallet positioning and changeover, and it assists operators in the precise positioning of garments and cut-piece goods.
Gauntlet 4 also includes M&R’s Tri-Sync pallet arm and Tri-Sync pallet, which greatly simplifies the addition of M&R’s revolutionary Digital Squeegee® hybrid printing system. Other standard features include M&R’s Revolver Print Program; squeegee pressure regulators; independently-set angle and calibrated squeegee and floodbar pressure adjustments; M&R’s electronically adjustable Ink Dip ink retrieval system that keeps ink in the screen printing area; and M&R’s Squeegee Dam system that gently lowers the squeegee blade onto the screen mesh when the press is idle to help prevent thinner water-based and discharge inks from flowing into the image area.
Gauntlet 4’s new, larger, higher-resolution control panel features revised, intuitive, icon-based labeling for operator convenience. The control panel also features an independent print-start/print-finish setting that automatically activates and stops printheads at the beginning and end of screen printing runs; jog-left/jog-right controls; onboard self-diagnostics; a production speed monitor; real-time production data; a test-print setting that turns individual printheads on/off during test-print cycles; a stopwatch feature that enables users to capture elapsed time for setup, runtime, shift time, or any other screen printing operation; and an enhanced Maintenance Minder system with photos and instructions that alerts operators when scheduled maintenance is due.
