Agfa Azura TU Chemistry Free Plates

[gig0]

Looking for some real world feedback on these plates. Mainly:

1.) How well does the plate hold up to the 150K impression rating?

2.) Can the plates get gummed up and reused on partial runs, such as gap between pressroom shifts?

3.) Sensitivity to scuffing compared to conventional plates?

and anything else you may want to add, like, profiling/alignment issues when switching from conventional to chem free, or savings on chemistry. Stuff like that. Thanks!

 

[contrakid]

1) The most we get out of a red plate is around 80k
2) Yes we do this most nights
3) Have found them to be very good compared to previous Fuji LH-PJE

The only issue we have with the plate is the inconsistency on how long the plate will take to ink up depending on the age of the chemistry/gum in the processor.

Also the plate takes longer than previous FUJI to get up to weight 40-60 min on fresh chemistry and around 100-120 sheets if the chemistry has done 200m of plates or more. AGFA advise to drop chems around 300-400m of plates usage.

Our machine minders have taken to cleaning gum off plate before starting run or running the press for 20-30 sheets then stopping and starting it again so the dampers help clean off the plate. AGFA our looking into the issue? at first they had never heard of this before and now they say they have a few customer with the same problem!

We our even running the gum 50/50 with water to help improve things but its still not good.

Also i would mention they obviously do put something in the gum to develope the plate as I have tested running the processor on Fuji gum and the plate comes out pretty much undeveloped!