Duplo DC-6 Mini Collator - Tips and tricks

I've just bought a Duplo DC-6 2nd hand machine for a mear $200. Naturally there is a reason why it's a bargin.

As I am tight arse, I am going to use DIY where ever possible to iron out all the problems, as there is not much info around on the internet I thought I blog some notes along the way to share my findings and fixes.

Firstly parts are not cheap , I guess if they were the previous owner would have fixed this machine.

I found this parts website:  http://www.chilvers.co.uk/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=294 and ebay but only chivers have parts listed on ebay and they have marked them up to counter the ebay/paypal fees.

The PDF manual is online here http://www.ppm-sales.com/manuals/duplo%20manuals/duplo%20DC%206%208%20Instruction%20Manual.pdf

The feed rollers are refered to as tyres as they pull on and off the plastic rims. If you decided to buy some new ones, you only need to replace the centre tyres as these are the ones that wear as there rub on the bottom plate unlike the outer pair which have and air gap.

Problem 1.

Paper mis-feeding gets dragged about 2cm and then stops and then the machine halts.

If you notice from the photo below the 3 rollers in a line, has a shiny center tyre. This happens when the tread wears away, the tyre is made up of a foam centre, then a plastic coating to which the rough grey tread is sprayed onto.

I did mention before I am much better at being resourceful than handing out my resources, so for me rather than run out and spend $180 (inc postage) for 6 new centre tyres, it was mearly a case of  swapping an outside roller with the middle one. This is because the outside rollers on the left and right aren't nowhere near as important as the centre roller.

Rear view of tray 1 from conveyor cover

So if you take my route, facing the collator from the front where the paper trays are, grab hold of that rod with the 3 rollers on and push to the left (ps it is spring loaded) and then pull the whole rod out.

Once you get the rod out carefully pull around the outside edge of the outer tyre and work it off the rim sliding it off the shaft, do the same for the center one. Thats it now do it all in reverse making sure you put the outer tyre with the tread on to the centre and leave the worn shiny tyre on the outside position.

Seperator (pop in and out)

Before you go ahead and re-install the tyre shaft back in the machine you may want to using a small flat blade screw driver (as above) flip over the plastic plate that the paper runs over as it is picked up by the centre pickup tyre. Once your done. Put the rod back in the collator and then repeat for all trays.

Update Sep 15, 2014
All the tyres are now fully worn out so I have bought 6 new tyres to go down the centre, after about 2 weeks of running the new tyres I am quiet happy I made the investment as the machine is operating on it's own with out any paper mis-feeds which means I can get on with other work.

Drive Assembly (Belt/Gears/Clutches)

The Clutches 

Pulling off the 2 screws holding in the top to gears I was able to pull out the gear/clutch assembly. With the 2 units on the bench with a pair of circlip plies I removed 2 circlips and had the whole assembly apart in no time.

Clutch Unit

Disassembled Clutch Unit

Some background on the clutch. When you run button 1 on the collator the machine detects which trays have paper in via a small lever mirco switch just behind the roller set. The collator using the clutch gear above turns on only the trays that it needs the others stay disconnected from the main drive belt as it goes around.

The clutch is an electro inductive coil, like the starter motor on a car but rather than spinning it pulls the outer copper plate on the gear which is always spinning, into the metal case which is connected to the roller rod that moves the paper.

The 3 red circles are the contact points with the center red circle being the contact point when the clutch is disengaged and the outer 2 red circles when engaged.

The blue markings show the a blue circle where the center copper ring is mounted to the gear and the arrows indicating the gap in between the outer and inner copper ring which lift when drawn by the electromagnetic force.

DL paper size

It's not supported according to the handbook. 

However all you need to do is use a small piece of wood on both sides of the DL so that it sits just left of the  center roller enough to run over the micro switch lever at the back so it registers with the microprocessor. I spaced out my A5s as well so that they would came out nicely in the stack.

DL setup using wooden blocks