Plastic tape grip problem solved

[Mickyblueeyes]

Hi this is my first post in the forum although I have read most of the other posts on here and learning a lot from you guys.
I have 2 machines an RV1s and an RV4s both of which I bought separately on EBay last year.
I am setting up for a small first production run on the RV4s and have come across the grip issue on plastic tapes, after a lot of trial and error I have finally diagnosed the cause of the problem. I found that if you used a double thick section of plastic leader tape that the friction issue disappeared, this meant that it wasn't a material problem, I also noticed that the tape would only feed forward not reverse when single thickness and that however hard you pushed down on the roller the friction on the tape didn't increase. it turns out that the roller is actually in contact with the plate that covers the indexing pin but only when the roller is too low on thin materials, so this is a design/ manufacturing problem with the machine.
My solution for my own feeders is to hollow grind the front end of the metal strip, I found some feeders don't have the problem because of manufacturing tolerances they just miss each other, I am sure there a re a few ways to remedy this depending on available resources.

its easy to test if this is your problem pull a strip though and where you find it wont grip remove the two screws holding the plate in place and nudge it back out of the way and try again, mine are working faultlessly now, I hope this helps someone else.
one other thing, you can actually see the wear on the plate caused by the belt rubbing against it.

Mike

[Mickyblueeyes]

Just for interest I have taken a pic of one of the plates before it was modified and you can see where the rubber belts have been riding on it, they appear as conical marks above the slots like on the third lane, this means the belt is riding on the plate and cannot exert sufficient pressure on the tape.

Mike