anyone with retractable banner bug knowledge help!!!

[gabagoo]

I must be stupid. A Customer comes in and needs 2 banners for tomorrow night and I say OK, then he brings in these 2 banner bug retractables that I never did. I told him that I have never done one and I will try to replace the banner. So anyways I print the new banners and now I slowly open the old retractables out far enough to see the main piece of plastic that holds onto the banner. This particular unit uses all double sided tape and as I put the key in to lock the tension about 4" of this incredibly brittle plastic breaks away from the left side of the holder. I can see it will continually rip off and naturally take a fit as I knew "Don't touch these your asking for trouble" So now the only way I can put the banner back in is to open this gizmo up and fix the main piece that attaches to the roll up. Take off one side and then Ziiiiippppppp, the retractable loses all its tension. OK wtf take the whole thing apart and now I will repair it. I was wondering I can see you just have to wind up this centre metal piece to bring the tension back, but how the hell do I know how much to wind it? anybody have experience with this. What kills me is that these banner bugs are awfully expensive compared to most and inside there is simplya blind lol... I think they are all the same

 

[CanuckSigns]

it sounds like an older unit from Ultima, we had the same problem with the cracking "leader strip" it was a defect that they never owned up to , now they use cloth, but that's for another thread LOL

anyways, we just figure out how many times the banner will wrap around the mechanism when it is retracted and add a few more for tension, always seems to work for us.

 

[gabagoo]

it sounds like an older unit from Ultima, we had the same problem with the cracking "leader strip" it was a defect that they never owned up to , now they use cloth, but that's for another thread LOL

anyways, we just figure out how many times the banner will wrap around the mechanism when it is retracted and add a few more for tension, always seems to work for us.

I too deal with Ultima but they dont sell this brand to my knowledge. In any case you are saying that one 360 degree rotation for each X amount of banner to go around it once and then a little extra? Sounds like a plan. wish me luck.

oh BTW go check out those guys at 3L unbelivably inexpensive but yea thats for another thread!!! lol

 

[CanuckSigns]

3L?
I must be missing something here lol. or i've been breathing in too much solvent fumes and One-Shot today LOL

 

[Ponto]

...been there, done that, feel your pain... a couple dozen turns should do it and you will notice the tension to be quite taut... hold while you insert the locking pin and attach your graphic with a good quality D/S tape. Always ensure your graphic has enough lead area ( 8" or so)to wrap around the cylinder.

JP

 

[gabagoo]

...been there, done that, feel your pain... a couple dozen turns should do it and you will notice the tension to be quite taut... hold while you insert the locking pin and attach your graphic with a good quality D/S tape. Always ensure your graphic has enough lead area ( 8" or so)to wrap around the cylinder.

JP

call me a fool I dont care, but I found a hex head that fit the tensioner and wound it 20 times, now heres the hard part. I cant release it as this is the side with the lock and it still needs the plastic housing to be slipped over it. I let it unwind again and raced back up here to ask, if I use the side with the locking attachment the other side simply has a round end, no way to wind it. Am I missing something here or am I really an idiot.

 

[Ponto]

call me a fool I dont care, but I found a hex head that fit the tensioner and wound it 20 times, now heres the hard part. I cant release it as this is the side with the lock and it still needs the plastic housing to be slipped over it. I let it unwind again and raced back up here to ask, if I use the side with the locking attachment the other side simply has a round end, no way to wind it. Am I missing something here or am I really an idiot.

Hmmm... don't really know how to respond to this

JP

 

[gabagoo]

well heres what I did and you need 2 people. you put the one side back together that has the round end piece and make sure it is in the opening and you put the locking pin in. then that person has to make sure that the little piece of chrome does not pop back in while on the other side with the winder I actually slipped the plastic end cap over it and used that to wind it up. you have maybe an 1/8" to deal with and the person on the other side has to keep pressure on their end so my side doesn't accidently slip out. I wound it 21 times and 1 for good luck and locked it in and screwed it all shut. Tomorrow I tape the banner on and see if it winds up properly. The last problem will be getting paid the extra for having to fix this gizmo....you think they want to pay? I doubt it.

 

[J Hill Designs]

me too =P

 

[CanuckSigns]

PAY?!? you want money for this??? Don't you just push a button??

well heres what I did and you need 2 people. you put the one side back together that has the round end piece and make sure it is in the opening and you put the locking pin in. then that person has to make sure that the little piece of chrome does not pop back in while on the other side with the winder I actually slipped the plastic end cap over it and used that to wind it up. you have maybe an 1/8" to deal with and the person on the other side has to keep pressure on their end so my side doesn't accidently slip out. I wound it 21 times and 1 for good luck and locked it in and screwed it all shut. Tomorrow I tape the banner on and see if it winds up properly. The last problem will be getting paid the extra for having to fix this gizmo....you think they want to pay? I doubt it.

 

[gabagoo]

latest update..... I am currently suffering with a cold or the swine flu, but had to come to work today to get these retractables out of here. The banner stand that was ok does not roll the banner up properly and I am lucky if it rolls up 1 foot. I'm just going to roll the banner on the outside and take it over to this guys client and set it up for them and tell them I am not responsible for reloading these and it is generally not recomended. The banner stand that I had to re wind and tighten ,rolls up all the way except for 4 inches which I can just force back in gently. My recomendation..... don't reload these things, make the customer by a new one and thats the end of it, not worth the grief.

 

[TrustMoore_TN]

We have the same problem with our retractables. Like it was mentioned earlier we have to use the outside "cap" to wind up the spring and hold it in place while trying to get the screws in place and tighten it. I hate doing those things.

When you guys reload one of these do you remove all of the tape and adhesive on the leader strip then use new adhesive? The reason I ask is that we have had failures where the new banner turns loose from the leader if we didn't do this but we usually don't figure in the labor involved in removing all of the adhesive which as you know can be time consuming. I guess we'll just have to add some extra time in our estimate when we get a call to do this in the future.

Any thoughts?

 

[DO Grafx]

I have had this problem too! I wound it as tight as I could and then tested it. It seemed to work good. I help this helps.

 

[gabagoo]

We have the same problem with our retractables. Like it was mentioned earlier we have to use the outside "cap" to wind up the spring and hold it in place while trying to get the screws in place and tighten it. I hate doing those things.

When you guys reload one of these do you remove all of the tape and adhesive on the leader strip then use new adhesive? The reason I ask is that we have had failures where the new banner turns loose from the leader if we didn't do this but we usually don't figure in the labor involved in removing all of the adhesive which as you know can be time consuming. I guess we'll just have to add some extra time in our estimate when we get a call to do this in the future.

Any thoughts?

Now that Iknow how to do it I suppose the next one wouldnt be to hard. It's still crazy trying to use the end cap to wind it....very slow and time consuming.

 

[signmeup]

I just did one 2 days ago. I took off the end cap and rolled the entire banner back up inside the housing then added a few turns of tension to the spring by using the end cap as a key. Then I put the screws back in. Took all of 5 minutes.

 

[gabagoo]

I just did one 2 days ago. I took off the end cap and rolled the entire banner back up inside the housing then added a few turns of tension to the spring by using the end cap as a key. Then I put the screws back in. Took all of 5 minutes.

so now that you opened one up and looked inside can anyone explain to me just WTF is the difference between this $300.00 model I worked on or a cheap $40.00? I dont think there is one outside of cosmetic. The blind mechanism is just that, nothing rocket science about it or even quality from what I can see. Man some of these companies really can pull the wool.

 

[signmeup]

I've only had the one apart so I can't comment on the quality differences. I would like to know though. Is there a good stand to be had for a reasonable price?