Broken Ring Indexer

[Sarge]

Well, that was fun. Went to the bench after a few months and found the press would not index. Pin broke off the indexer. Of course the spring is MIA. 

Funny, I always thought these things would break during use. Mine seems to have failed while just sitting on the bench as it was working perfectly last time I loaded.

[Brooke]

Never done that? The spring has a habit of breaking at the hook and can happen any time since it's under tension. My problem is breaking the ring itself. Four now in two months. The first one broke without me doing anything different. The next three after installing a 650Pro Mark 7.

I sent Dillon an email asking about it and they suggested that I grease the inside of the ring when I install it. Well thanks a lot! I'm not an idiot. I told them about the Mark 7 installation and the comment was they don't do tech support for Mark 7's. I never asked them to do that. I just told them the entire story of the press and asked if they had experienced similar failures so I could isolate the cause. I never wrote anything that anyone could twist into thinking I asked for Mark 7 support. Someone just wrote a stupid answer to my email so they could mark me off the list.

Contacted Mark 7 and could not be happier. They immediately admitted to a torque application problem which had already been fixed in a software update. Told me what update to install and everything seems to be perfect at the moment including a much smoother operation. More importantly they answered me without any hint I am stupid.  

Anyway back to the issue...the indexer ring is IMHO not strong enough. It needs to be strengthened where it changes widths. Not sure whether the mold has one or two gates, but this looks like a cold knit line problem or a stress concentration problem at the width change point. A gradual rather than sudden width change would probably help flow in the mold. The spring is too weak. It's next to impossible to install it without stretching it beyond its yield point. The post on the ring end has no retention groove so the spring can fall off if it is stretched a little. I have to admit that I have gotten damn good at replacing rings and springs. A ray of sunshine in every problem I guess. 

Anyhow...I think Dillon owes its customers some improvements in the indexer area. It is definitely a weak design point and a difficult repair. Mark 7 fixed me up, but the problem they addressed would seem to be a problem on all 650's not just ones with Mark 7's. The same torque application at the top end happens with manually operated machines also.   

Edited January 17, 2017 by Brooke