Violet vs thermal Ctp

[deekshith]

How good is violet in camparison with Thermal technology in CtP plates.
Anyone who have tested both pls give me some inputs.
Rgds
KITH

[LauraMinter]

We are a support company who does support on both thermal and violet systems. We have found the following:
1. The day to day running costs of the violet systems are better than the thermal systems
2. Violet systems are more lenient than Thermal systems. Basically what it means is that if your bath starts going on a violet system, you can plan your downtime and still get your work out before you go down. With a thermal system it does not give you adecate warning, so you have to shcedule it to do once a week for example - depending on the amount of plates you use, obviously.
3. We also found that we certainly have less problems with the violet systems than we do with the thermal. It just seem to be more stable.
4. I have not really seen any quality difference between the violet and thermal systems.
5. Your initial outlay costs is better on violet than it is on thermal.
6. You can get a lot more productivity out of a violet system than out of a thermal system price for price.

It sounds as if I prefer violet systems to thermal systems, but it is not really that. The thermal guys like Kodak and Screen have made a good job to market thermal and by no means is it bad products. They certainly have the lions share of systems out in the market place. But I think violet has come a long way since the first systems was installed. And again, from a support companies outlook, I will rather support violet than thermal.

[John W]

Laura,
We use two Trendsetters and a Screen 8600.
I think it's important to compare the thermal devices and their consumables separately. As far as the devices go, I would suggest that Screen is better because they continue to support their products; they make machines for all consumable vendors while Kodak is arguably and essentially a consumable vendor. The Creo's are no longer supported as they once were. Screen has to continue support because that is their revenue stream and has been since the 1950's!
Yes, I am a dyed in the wool Screen advocate because they have never let me down since my first large purchase in 1986; never. They also went beyond the call of duty once when a second scanner spec was about 4% out (only at the POT end limit) than my first scanner. They, in the field modified #2 to match #1. That's the Japanese pride showing big time. It continues today, IMO.

Now plates:

We have two plants, one running Kodak thermal and one running Fuji thermal plates. You are correct that the Kodak plant changes the chemistry about once per week (after about 1000 plates); with the Fuji (after about 2000 plates). Also the amount of chemistries used in our Kodak plant are significantly greater than our Fuji plant. Plus ovens (for Kodak plates) require hydro and maintenance (at the moment); none are required for the Fuji. Of course there are other reasons why a plant may use one or the other.

For this reason, I believe one must compare hardware and consumables separately.

John W

[superuser74]

Hi John,
which plates do you use? Any special reason why the Fujis are more economical?

[zini]

Printing quality with CtP violet and thermal.

Have a look at this document:

http://www.polygraph-gb.de/ctp/VIOVSTHM.pdf

[viofems]

So helpful! Now if only I could read German!

[detroit]

Our Plant has a Unique situation, thats what several plate vendors and machine techs have told us anyway. We have a Trendsetter News Thermal Ctp machine, and sitting right next to it ,is a Alpha Quest Violet Ctp.
So the feedback from our pressmen is this: 9Pressmen out of 10 prefer the Violet Machine for color pop, less usage of water and it just looks better color image and brightness wise.
On the other hand they prefer the Trendsetter Thermal for Registration purposes. It seems to register the image better due the fact of how it clamps the plate on the drum cylinder and then does its imagining. The violet machines transport system slowly brings the plate thru as it lasers the image thus the registration is still great yet not quite as good as the trendsetter,and yet the colors dont seem to pop and look as nice, so its a catch 22 situation. You have better registration on one but better color pop on the other,and it "lays down on the paper better"(violet) so the pressmen say.
As for maintenance, If the Alfa quest machine were to go down, it so much easier to get in there and fix, not complicated at all. The violet laser is cheaper if it were to go down and need replaced and the thermal is more expensive and takes more energy to run. Also a plate vendor told me that the technology for violet lasers is moving forward and he thinks the thermal is slowly going to be phased out. CDs Dvds are a hot item that violet supports and will continue to move forward.

[nshadab]

A great discussion, Thanks for all your comments, really after reading those, i realized how less i knew about these systems. You guys are really great.

[gordo]

Our Plant has a Unique situation, thats what several plate vendors and machine techs have told us anyway. We have a Trendsetter News Thermal Ctp machine, and sitting right next to it ,is a Alpha Quest Violet Ctp.
So the feedback from our pressmen is this: 9Pressmen out of 10 prefer the Violet Machine for color pop, less usage of water and it just looks better color image and brightness wise.

I'm sorry but that just reads like a bunch of unqualified horse patootie.

If your plate curves are correct and the press is laying down ink at the same solid ink density then there will be no difference in snap, crackle, or "color pop" as you put it.

If you want to compare the technologies then compare them on quantifiable metrics like cost to deliver a plate to the press room, throughput, consistency, maintenance schedule, etc. not on the opinions of some un-named pressmen on what constitutes "pop" and "better color brightness wise."

Oh, and when your vendor told you that "the technology for violet lasers is moving forward and he thinks the thermal is slowly going to be phased out. CDs Dvds are a hot item that violet supports and will continue to move forward" you might inform him that when CDs and DVDs are written to the term used is "burnt" because the writing technology is thermal - not visible light. That's why blank CDs and DVDs don't need to be stored in the dark.

(BTW, for the record, I'm neither pro thermal nor anti-violet. I'm pro informed decision making and anti-BS)

best, gordon p

[rbailleu]

I heard from my heidelberg salesman that they are not going to be selling the prosetter line any longer.

heresay but informative. they also say if the are demoing a machine they use the violet silver plate, because it rolls up faster, etc. just bs but that is what I have heard from various consumable/sales people.