Excessive Strap dust

[johnz55]

We switched distributors for our strap used on the Ovalstrap Strapmaster NS.  We seem to be getting an excess of strap dust that is clogging our machine.  Anyone ever heard of this in an automatic machine?  Thanks in advance.

[Michael Jones]

Pretty much all strap will dust to some degree. Some, depending on the material or compounds used, will dust much worse than others. For some machines designs this is a problem while for others ,more tolerant.
If you are finding the dust to be bad match for you machine, try a few different rolls from different strap manufacturers. They will probably send you free rolls to try.

[paul barnhart]

you can try rigging up air blasts inside your strapper to help combat this problem.

Paul

[Kevin Morgan]

We had this problem years ago when I tried a different distributor due to price issues. The tests rolls that were sent did fine but over time they changed some of the chemistry when making the strap which caused excessive dust build up (more than normal) causing us to clean the heads at least once a week. After switching back to our current distributor things are much better.

As the saying goes you get what you pay for and if you buy cheaper strap your going to have more trouble in the long run. 

[Dave Paschall]

Welcome to the save a buck - shoot yourself in the head spending strategy that has unfortunately took us all by storm in this rough economy. While I am as tight as they get when it comes to spending my company's money, I am also a very competitive shopper when it comes to quality and quantity in the long run. Have you had any other problems with this strap other than a lot of dust? Even while blowing out the machine regularly you Will probably have to clean the heating element a lot more frequently as well as  Pm intervals on the seal head. I to have tested strap from other manufacturers for my Dynaric machines in hopes of saving a few dollars per coil. I  have had to remove pieces shredded strap stuck in the strap paths that normally would not occur. Even blowing out the machines after every run, the Pm's will increase due to a dirty machine. There was no savings here when you have stop to take care of these things during a run. Time is money. A clean machine runs flawlessly run after run so where are the real savings.

[Stephen Webb]

I totaly agree, I continue to have to fight for this every few months. The fact is you do save money with better strap, lost production due to problems with cheap strap is huge. Some of our older machines just would not run consistantly with the cheaper strap. Have the same problem with the press and inks, switched to the cheaps ink they could find; now the ink pumps a burning up in half the time as usual and they have to add chemicals to keep the ink from gowing mold! Yea that's some good savings!

[Ron Buckland]

Has anyone tried calling Hank Golla at Strapack?

hgolla@strapack.com

We have worked with him in the past and he's been great help to us.

Good luck!

[Eamon McSweeney]

Funny, we may be 3000+ miles apart and running different machines but the same applies the world over, save a buck this week - lose 2 bucks next week! We have this problem from time to time, but about 2 years ago we got a batch of strap we just could not run due to dust so we sent back the whole batch. Switched back to the so called "expensive stuff" which worked well but now we are finding that the "expensive stuff" suppliers are slacking on quality (i guess they are looking for the cheapest manufacturers too). Not only is dust a problem but if we get tape that is of a softer compound or gets kinked easily we will have problems. BTW we run ferag quickstraps and the cross strap will generally run forever but the longitudinal strap is the problem. Now that circulations are down the odd bundle sizes are smaller which dosnt help either. Sorry i cant help with your problem but the fact that you know someone else is suffering too might ease the pain lol.

[johnz55]

I want to thank all of you for your answers.  Not only was there excessive dust but it turns out the lot I had were recoils.  This presented a continuous twist to the machine.  Shredded edges and dust were the inevitable result.  Thanks again.