Fuji vs Kodak Plates

[AFarster]

Anyone have any thoughts about either plate material (good or bad)? We are considering moving to Fuji from Kodak.

Thanks.

[John W]

We use both brands one each in two different plants. Info below is approximate but is from our trenches.

My plant uses Fuji. I feel their plate is top draw, consistent; virtually never fails. The chemistry is long running (~3000 sq m per batch); at about 6-8% of plate cost and runs clean.

Our other plant uses Kodak and has six times my plant's volume. They run two processors and one is cleaned each week on alternating weeks. To me, I am surprised at this frequent a cleaning; some people call their chemistry 'dirty'. The system also uses more (~1500 sq m per batch); at about 13% of plate cost of three different chemicals, so you can see the cost of plate processing is a bit higher than the Fuji chemistry which is only two chemicals.
We often run our sister plants Kodak plates and find that three times is the maximum we use them before problems sometimes arise, so we made that an sop but understand that only our shop.

Hope this helps muddle you even more than you likely are now!

John

[jbrady]

Have you looked at Agfa plates, we are looking to upgrade to a new platesetter and are considering all options.
Run length and preferably a no bake plate is what we are looking for.

[Mark]

Can't speak for the plates, but back in the film days we switched to Fuji from Kodak and were very happy. I would assume the plates are great too.

[AFarster]

We used Agfa and switched to Kodak. We are a mid-volume plant and are looking at consistancy. It seems to be a pretty even struggle. I guess we will have to test some plates and figure it out from there.

[jbrady]

We ran a set of test Agfa Amigo plates and they will not work for us, now they are proposing the Energy Elite plate.
How do you find the Kodak plates to run?.
Still would like to try the Fuji plate.

[Brian G]

John:
Will you expand on why the Amigo did not work for you?
Thanks,
brian

[jbrady]

Run length is the problem, we had a set made for the web and they starting
breaking down at 50000 impressions. They were unbaked plates , but they do not
come close to the rated run length. We are now trying the new energy elite plate,
we will see how they run.

[Matt]

You may want to get a hold of your Konica dealer. I'm told they have new plates that I hear are very good. Probably not a bad idea to have them run some test.

Matt

[UncleSam]

If you are looking for a no-bake plate, Fuji is your choice! Best quality, less cost for the chemical. Kodak can't catch up with Fuji yet, why pay extra to become a beta tester?!