Can body decorator having a mandrel pre-spin assembly and infeed improvements

A can body decorator assembly comprising:

• a rotatable blanket wheel assembly including plural print blankets adapted for applying text and graphics to can bodies;
• a rotatable mandrel wheel assembly including plural mandrels adapted for putting can bodies into contact with the print blankets of the blanket wheel assembly, the mandrel wheel assembly having:
• an infeed point A at which can bodies are transferred from an infeed mechanism onto the mandrel wheel assembly;
• a seated point B at which the can bodies are loaded on the mandrels;
• a trip point C at which misloaded mandrels are inwardly retracted from a peripheral, print-ready position to a bypass position and loaded mandrels remain in a print-ready position;
• a printing point D at which the can bodies in the print-ready position are engaged with the print blankets;
• and
• a reset point E at which the misloaded mandrels are moved to the print-ready position;
• and
• an over-varnish unit adapted for applying a coating over the can bodies after the can bodies engage the print blankets;
• wherein an angle A-D measured on the mandrel wheel assembly between infeed point A and printing point D is between 160 and 200 degrees and wherein the can body decorator assembly operates at least 1600 can bodies per minute.