Printing plate requirements

[Kaoticor]

Just a suggestion, but make sure that you try and get in contact with some customers who have used the product you are considering and talk to their prepress and pressmen. Its amazing how many holes you will find in a product description when you start talking to the people who use it. The plates we use were rated for long life runs (500k impressions) without baking - yeah, they don't do it.

Thomas Beauchamp?
If you are who I think you are, I believe we have worked together a while back when you worked at our place in the US. Please send me an email at Kaoticor@hotmail.com


Kevin, if I may ask, what are the benefits Kodak is hoping to achieve with the new Trillian plates? What makes them different from the Sword Excel line? Thanks again for taking the time to provide some feedback.

[Kevin@Kodak]

No no, there is no way that with a user name like BeauchampT I could possibly be who you think I am

Actually, to our Kodak rep...I just heard about those Trillian plates recently. How do they compare with EXD (the replacement line for Electra). I know these are post-bake and we got over 2 million impressions with them on one run.

I gather the concept of Trillian is to get long runs with no bake, but do they exhibit the same sharpening as most plates, or is the plate emulsion just that much more resilient?

Unfortunately if you're doing 2 million impression runs, there are no plates on the market that will achieve that today without post-baking (unless you have IDEAL press conditions and high-quality paper). We do have people getting 1-1.2M with EXD unbaked, but that's not something we can guarantee. Even with baking, I'm not aware of any manufacturer having a specification above 1M impressions. EXD is one of our longest running plates if mechanical wear is the limiting factor, unless you go to our preheat plates (Thermal Gold, Thermal Platinum, or DITP Gold) which are the "gold standard" for long-run web publications.

The magic in Trillian SP (with regards to run length on press) is where press chemical resistance is the limiting factor. EXD has great mechanical robustness, but it can be attacked by some of the stronger alcohol substitutes that are common in the USA market. Trillian SP is almost bullet-proof in that respect, even without baking. So, for the average printer using alcohol substitutes you'll get a much longer and more consistent run from them.

Kevin.