Washing and cleaning device for cylinders, especially printing form cylinders and offset blanket cylinders in a printing machine comprising a timing mechanism for a continuous cleaning cloth

#This is a U.S. national stage of application No. PCT/EP03/03653, filed on 9 Apr. 2003. Priority is claimed on that application and on the following application(s): Country: Germany, Application No.: 102 16 058.9, Filed: 11 Apr. 2002.

#1. Field of the Invention

#The invention relates to an erasing and cleaning apparatus, also called an erasing station, for cleaning cylindrical surfaces, in particular of printing form and blanket cylinders within printing presses with the aid of a cleaning cloth which can be moved by cleaning cloth transport means and which can be advanced intermittently.

#In the drawings, wherein like reference characters denote similar elements throughout the several views:

#FIG. 1 is a side view of a side wall of the positioning unit for the cleaning cloth, showing bearing elements which can be connected with a form-fitting and force-transmitting fit to the cleaning cloth transport means which are housed in an exchangeable cassette,

#FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the subject matter of FIG. 1,

#As shown in FIG. 5, the apparatus for erasing and cleaning cylindrical surfaces comprises a clean cloth roll 101, a dirty cloth roll 102 for receiving the used cleaning cloth 103, and a pressure element 104, in particular a wash roll, which presses the cloth 103 against a cylindrical surface 105.

#These cleaning cloth transport means are integrated, together with the cleaning cloth, in a prepackaged cassette and provided for insertion into a slide-in system arranged fixedly in the printing press in the form of a positioning unit having the features described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,694,879. As is known, the positioning unit comprises two side parts which are arranged parallel to one another and are connected to one another via a crossmember to form a superstructure into which all the necessary supply units are introduced. The side parts house bearing elements which interact with the cleaning cloth transport means of an inserted cassette. That is the cassette can be placed on the positioning unit and can be connected to the latter with a form-fitting and force-transmitting fit, for instance approximately in the same way as a video cassette in its associated drive, a drive for the cleaning cloth transport means being mounted pivotably on the positioning unit in a known manner, with the result that the positioning unit and the drive are present in a modular design.

#A drive motor therefore serves to drive the cleaning cloth and is controlled by a computing program which can make it possible to advance the cleaning cloth section by section and transport it backward partially after every cleaning operation and finally rewind the used cleaning cloth from the dirty cloth roll to the clean cloth roll.