Pheenix AD12's , What have they done to them!!!

[mossboss]

Well here we are at Zenith installing our newly acquired AD12 presses from two defunct plants, Namely Mcol in France and Dublin Vinyl in Ireland
The presses from France are very early production machines most likely within the 10-30 machines produced, there two of them id say about 5-6 years old as the data on the oil pack indicates a date around end of 2017, the Irish presses are dated mid 2021, say 2-3 years old
These presses were in a pretty bad state mainly due to bad or no maintenance, lack of knowledge, lack of care whatever, presses where very dirty, rusty bases, rusty columns as well as a whole host of obvious signs that whoever run them knew shit about running these machines nor any plant with steam water air pressure hydraulics as we have in a pressing plant
Some things I have seen makes me wonder, we are fixing them as we find those issues so as to re commission them
Wrong plumbing fittings used on the bronze valve blocks
Mixture of parallel BSPP and BSPT fittings, some in steel some in brass some in Stainless steel mostly in the wrong spots
Teflon used on swivel fittings to supply the moulds
Rust forming on the machines due to badly executed plumbing, wrong fittings used allowing water and steam to escape rusting out the base and the column close to the valve block, in all 4 machines we have, 30 plus plus year old machines in a far better state that these new AD12's
There are two press which they run with loose mounting bolts, mould to carrier damaging the locating boss plates both top and bottom had to be removed than skimmed on the lathe
No strainers on the input lines causing damage to the teflon seals of the air actuated valves, we got around 40 dud ones from Ireland all with damaged Teflon seals
They used Iron plumbing fittings which rust causing damage to the valves, there was no water treatment in both plants
Lots of damaged moulds over 20 sets, from lack of care or knowledge nicks and gouges as well as one damaged set of moulds which also destroyed the record unloader, very expensive that one, obviously the press closed on the unloading arm which was not in its home position, you need to set the closing position of the ram on the PLC , the instruction are very clear, someone Farked up there big time, there is no way the press will ever close unless unless that's in its position and activates the appropriate sensors,
Flexible hoses installed with a twist in them which causes premature failure we have a bucket full of dead ones
No strainers on the input side of the steam traps a NO NO in the game, rust and fine particles interfere with the proper function of these expensive items
One machine has the a strainer on the OUTLET, fat lot of good that will do
A number of safety switches either bypassed or taken out all together
I am sure we will find some more as it is the second week we are at it, what is the point of all the above?
Well it goes to show that:
They did not know what they were doing Badly installed badly maintained a lot of cost to replace parts besides down time, very expensive,
I bought these machines at two Auctions than physically travelled there with 2 other people to dismantle tham load them up than shipped them out to Australia,
It was not a simple task a lot of hard work, disconnect them from services than pack them so as not to damage anything for the long voyage we had about 2 weeks in France and 8 days in Ireland in those plants
I just shook my head when I first seen them, saying to myself No wonder they went bust, no one can stay in this game spending that kind of money on repairs and parts
A real shame to be honest, to see that level of incompetence and abuse of new equipment, I am sure that these cannot be isolated instances either
but
"That's the vinyl Truth"
Best

[untitledthe]

Hello Chris, sounds like your haul needs some work as it often goes with a sharp deal. Very interesting what you came across so far, some are recognisable from work but didnt had the idea to apply it to a recordpress. Was there anything left unsold from the M Com Musique auction? I saw they also build their own press, and got tons of small stuff lying around which could be usefull to me.

Kinda suprised the other 2 came from Dublin Vinyl. As i recall they where one of the first wave that get Warmtone presses to Europe.

Just kicking some open doors here probably but; its best to use brass or stainless steel fittings to prevent corrosion / pollution of the moulds / traps / entire system? Whats wrong to use teflon tape on the fitting of the moulds? What to use instead? Good point on the strainers. I see them at work but didnt think of it to put it on my press.

So far i somewhat can imagine people/operators wouldnt care about rust and that kind of stuff - they didnt bleed for it, but the loose mounting bolts are another level of carelessness. Makes me wonder how they get a good record off of it with so much macguyvering going around.

You mention 40 dud ones, in like valves?! and 20(!) sets of damaged moulds?(!) Imagine those bills. Beyond state to reface or still to be assesed?
Lots of strange things going on like the arm under the press and the bypassed sensorr/switches. Sounds like a desperate attempt to keep everything going.

I have no doubt you guys get them going a pressing like new!

[mossboss]

The haul if you call it such, is what we got we paid for
Believe me these auctioneers had their wolfhounds around watching every one there like we were terrorists Ha
Nah you pay for it you get it, the other thing in Ireland!! was that you as a buyer had to watch out to make sure others did not pinch your purchases, more than one person tried it on Its like a war zone and once your item you paid for its gone no one there cares
Any way some points may not be obvious however consider that different metal parts expand and contract at different rates, so its good practice not to mix them in plumbing fittings, stick to one kind whatever that is, we are using 304/316 stainless steel fittings as well as piping throughout, except the main steam supply line which will be heavy wall steel, with butt weld fittings, Got a price for S/S pipe nearly had a heart attack, ha couldn't justify the $210 per meter price tag plus all the weld on fittings cost, we will have some S/S pipe down to the presses from the main overhead supple line, our existing 50mm steam supply steel pipe has been in service for around 15 years It gets a yearly inspection it is still in serviceable condition, so that is what going in
Now
Swivel joints seal against the machined taper once you put Teflon on the threads you prevent that so they will leak or you need to tighten them up so much that the likelihood of stripping the threads is quite high Not good practice
Mcol building their own press? No idea I know they had a Finebilt or similar machine which was not there or part of the auction, as for what was left Id say mostly door stoppers and junk, Great installation on the cooling system excellent! no water treatment but all the piping was in good shape, in Ireland! for a 2-3 year old installation it was in pretty bad state
The Warmtones you mentioned never belonged to the people at Dublin Vinyl, They where removed prior to the Auction, and I was told they went back to the States, I have no further information on that
Some of the ex workers I met there did not have anything good to say about Warmtones Mr Scully the CEO purportedly said "Glad to see the ass end of that pile of shit!I By the way there was a lot of damaged Viryl parts around the place, sensors relays heating elements air components etc, I do not have any experience with them so I have no view or any comments to make
The valves will get repair kits, than back into service, Moulds? Who knows may be they get tested under steam and water we have a test rig already We make moulds so it is not high on the list, We done a lot of the work already what was obvious any way I am sure we wiil find more so we will deal with those as they prop up
There be more to come up I am expecting it, we will see
That's
"The Vinyl Truth"
Best

[untitledthe]

Sounds like quite an adventure in Ireland. Thank you very good info on the plumbing work, this will sure come in usefull, good practice not to mix it up. If a steel pipe holds up 15 years without rust or other problems its good enough. Yes in some online reportage you see a bookmould type press, maybe they kept it, maybe they stripped it, maybe old iron who knows. M Com' Musique sur France 2 (Reportage Télématin) on YouTube. Is anyone in contact with the owner Antoine Ollivier? Would love to hear if there is a spare trimmer, extruder etc left. Maybe one of the reasons Viryl went a little quiete, it suprised me so many American operations went for the European Pheenix.

[mossboss]

I don't know the man never met him while there I don't know if he has anything There was nothing left at the plant as it was all sold at auction than cleaned up by the auctioneer or the landlord who runs his show next door
I was surprised to see the building they where in Just a tin shed No insulation just thin metal sheeting It must have been freezing in the winter and like an oven in the summer, we did see a lot of electric room heaters there
Who knows how they managed
Best

[mossboss]

Hi all a bit of an update on the state of our AD12s
De rusted all the areas suffering corrosion with a 20% Phosphoric Acid and water solution
Primed than painted with a pretty good colour matched industrial epoxy
They look good hard to tell where we been
So in the process of re-machining the damaged mould carrier plates we also discovered that some Einstein attempted to remove the bottom plate screwed on the machine table without removing the shaft that is used to rotate mould locating sleeve that locks the moulds in position,
That of course resulted in the complete destruction of the hardened sleeve that carries the locating bush which is moved by rotating that shaft with the lever on the side of the table
It amazed me to see that whoever did that had no feel as it would have taken some pressure applied on the 10 MM screws that where used as extractors on the threaded holes which are there for this purpose,
The bush is about 6 mm thick hardened with a ground finish and good quality steel, it can take some punishment, It did as it come out in about six pieces, couldn't believe my eyes
All the stamper locking rings on the Dublin presses where damaged out of round with rather bad ugly welds on them, these lock against the stamper holding down spun metal rings which have angular slots machined in their vertical part, they lock down rather effortlessly
I don't quite understand how or why we have a lot of damaged locking rings and holding down stamper covers
About 10 plus pairs weird I have no contact with anyone there to quiz, so this remains a bit of a mystery to me
It was also fun and games getting the leveling feet on all the machines to move
They were seized almost solid, Oxy flame with a quick cool down squirt with an air gun sorted that out but that meant all of them had to be coated with a brush on galavanising paint so as to provide some protection, the feet on the extruders same story but these where of rather questionable quality as they bend stretched the threads rendering them useless so they all got replaced
Most of the plumbing is now done another few days will see us through, than it is the electric mains supply, Isolating switches, cabling to them checking things, out getting ready to bring them to life,
Will see if my time frame to have them up by Christmas comes to fruition, it be a fairly close call
Best

[mossboss]

It seems that we have at least visually found most of the questionable workmanship on these machines
No doubt there be "hidden treasures" for us when we put them under power than getting them to press a record
What I can say is this, the people that had anything to do with the installation may have done it right, than left someone else maintaining them?
that's another issue, I have no knowledge, these ppl need some serious dressing down, they wouldn't last a day around here that's for sure
Will keep this updated as we go along
Best

[farmersplow]

It seems that the bricklayers did the installations. And the plumbers did the electrics. And the electricians worked on the mechanical parts. The toolmakers could then only do the bricklaying work, because everything else had already been done!

[mossboss]

Probably right there Farmer, Ain't you glad they did not make your plough?
To me it seems like the old saying
"A one eyed man is king in a blind village"
There has been comments on another thread here about manufacturers not supporting the machines they sell
I don't see that this has anything to do with what I have seen or heard, how is it that any machine manufacturer can be held into any kind of responsibility when the people that buy the equipment do not have the appropriate knowledge themselves or the staff with the required knowledge to run the plant for them?
Record pressing is not Plug an Play it is more like Plug and Pray
They blame lack of support, attributing all kind of unfounded accusations towards them, it really comes down to lack of expertise in themselves or on their manufacturing floor, to me it is as simple as that
One cannot match or beat 20-30 years of experience with a few days or weeks on the Internet
May be that did not occur to therm at the time, maybe it dawned on them now, who knows
Best,

[montalbano]

"Plug and pray"
Hey
Don't worry about the unloading arm - the "in" position is still given by a proximity sensor. Don't have to tell you where it is, you know that.
So hydraulics won't start if the arm is not fully in.
BUT
The PLC values of its reed sensor are there for a very exact setting of the inner position. Something you have to do by making the ram rise manually, with air off and then on again when OK. You do it at your 1st start, and then every now and then, the procedure is well described in the manual, however there is a window (just warning - or stop) you can set, because as you know, reed values can float from time to time - and you don't want the machine going like a bullet the 1st days and then stop every minute the week after.
I think they did it to preserve some parts. You perfectly know that by keep on going with an uncentered arm will sooner or later damage the stopper, unloading ring etc.
So you maybe have a look at the avg variation of the reed value during a normal pressing, and then adjust the min/max window so that only significant changes will make your press stop.
Also, be prepared to say Dio Madonna with the clamping rings, and remember that if you want to minimize rejects your, bottom centre bush should flash the stamper as much as possible; there are no screws, no eyelets, just the standard ring which was the "economy ring" back then, which doesn't have much grip. Even a cold label won't make your record be unloaded.
On the other side, if the centre bush is OK, you will be able to change color in no time pressing without labels (and regrinding everything)
You have focused on what IMHO are the weakest parts, but once they'll be in production, you'll appreciate the fantastic hydraulics.
Once up and running, put a sticker of a nice fica on the top head, guys will work better

[mossboss]

Thanks for the heads up Phil
Much appreciated, have gone through the manual quite a few times now and it starts making sense,
I need to look closer to the sensor on the ram position to establish its operating characteristics It looks fairly simple, besides the sensor on the record un-loader arm
But that has to wait a few days yet, we are another week or so away running services to them
25 meters of Steam water air and return lines takes a bit of doing particularly when it is up on columns with about 2.8 M vertical drops, fun but that way the floor is kept uncluttered
I am also considering to re arrange the flex hoses for the hydraulic pack so as to provide for a better connection having those hoses of the block on the machine back to the hydraulic pack on the floor seems a bit agricultural to me
I am thinking of some hard piping up high on the machine coming out off the floor with a short flex hose to the pack
Still thinking about that as to the best way to do it
I don't particularly want them on the floor
Any way that's not going to be some kind of issue its nothing wrong with it as it is, just that hydraulic hoses rubbing anywhere are a No No to me and I can see them doing that, flexing on every cycle May be that has to wait a while Ha
We got a lot to do yet before we start looking at that aspect
Best