Kodak Trillian SP Help!

[Gulli]

Good morning.
We have used the Kodak Electra Excel and Sword printing plates for 6 years now. The only reason for using the Sword plate is a Roland 706 printing UV. When Kodak introduced the Trillian SP we saw the possibility to have the same plate on all printing machines. Our prepress jumped on it. A Kodak technician set the Trillian up on a Magnus 800. All plate measurements are excellent. The printing is very fine on a Roland 305, Heidelberg SM 54 and GTO.

Then the problem started, which i wish someone out there could help us about. The Roland 706 and 704 have some color pickup in the none image areas on the Trillian plate but not uniformly over the whole area ( 72x102 cm.). Mostly the Magenta color. When they change immediately back to Sword plates (the same job) all is fine. Then they changed to some ink call High Brite an ink that dryes very quickly and Trillian plates and everything was fine.

Our pressmen seem to have difficulties explaining this and why there is no problem on the smaller format machines.

Is there anyone who could give us some hint about this?

Thank you in advance, Gulli.

[jcone18]

The first place I would check is your processor. You may not getting all of the emulsion off of the plate. Your plush rollers may be worn which would result in insufficient scrub on the plate as it's processed. This is less of an issue with Sword plates because they are a positive plate. Good luck!!

[kansasquaker]

We recently had a similar issue with our Trillian plates. We only run one size, but on two presses. We had spots that wouldn't clean up well and they were accepting ink on press. Sometimes it was visible on the plate post processing, sometimes not. Eventually we figured out there were two issues. One, Kodak has a recall on some plates because the emulsion wasn't releasing properly - I believe those plates were Feb 2012 expiration date. They're in the process of bringing new manufacturing facilities on line so I'd guess that's the root cause.

Our second issue was that Xpedx, our distributor, had sent us another box that was already expired.

The recalled plates were pretty bad. The expired plates would eventually clean up, but we had to process them 2 or 3 times.

I don't know if that's your problem or not, but it might be worth asking about.

[Gulli]

Hi kansasquaker.
Thanks for your reply.
We have never seen anything visible on the plates. I called our supplier and he asked if you could send me the batch number of your problem plates, but maybe it´s to much to ask for.
Thanks, Gulli

[Kevin@Kodak]

Hi kansasquaker.
Thanks for your reply.
We have never seen anything visible on the plates. I called our supplier and he asked if you could send me the batch number of your problem plates, but maybe it´s to much to ask for.
Thanks, Gulli

Hi Gulli - I'm guessing you're in Iceland by your profile, so you'd be receiving plates from our European manufacturing operations. Have you been in touch with the Kodak support team? If you can send me your contact details in a private message or email, I'll try to ensure someone gets in touch with you.

The problem you describe sounds like an ink receptivity issue with one particular UV-cure ink? It's hard to offer a blanket diagnosis in these cases because UV inks and the supporting chemistry can vary so widely - but that's what our technical teams are for.

Kevin.

[RickLee]

Hi Gulli,

We have a similar issue.

I have a couple of questions.

Do you have toning/scum on the plates when you start-up? (we do)

Does RC95 plate cleaner get rid of it? We found a light wipe will remove both the scum and the soreness of the plate. however the run length drops to 20k or 30k

Do you find that a single replacement plate that goes on the press works without problem?

Do you find that the longer the plate sits before mounting on press the worse the problem is?

I would be curious what you answers are to these questions.

RIck

[Gulli]

Kevin@kodak, thank you for your reply.
Now everybody seems to be on their toes here in Iceland to solve this problem. Thanks to you all on PrintPlanet. Our supplier said that they are looking at it at Kodak Nordic. I hope they come up with something.
Thanks again, Gulli

[RickLee]

@Gulli

is this a problem for all of your local printing industry using Kodak Trillian or is it only at your plant?

[ChristopheF1]

My limited experience with Trillian...we've had some coating issues, but most of the time we could bring it backt to the moisturising system of the presses ( Heidelberg SM102 ) with UV low migration ink's.
Does anybody see something on rubber parts of their processors ? ( O rings and so ) ?

[Gulli]

RickLee
We are the first plant in Iceland to try the Trillian SP plates. All seems to be fine on the smaller plates and it´s maybe only a problem with the batch of bigger plates.