Ptek has a serious mark up on Riceobi parts and rollers. Like a 3985 DNP price for a #1 form roller is $101.00 they charge like 3 times that much. That is why they can offer 35% off rollers and still make money.
They even sell Syntac rollers and still make money. They call them VOC rollers.
Do yourself a favor and look at the independent service people and parts suppliers that are available.
There are plates available for the DPM 2340 and DPM34 available also at a lesser cost. All you need is a media adapter. The razor and blade boys roll their plates inside out to make it proprietary. But it is standard Mitsubishi stuff.
Proprietary is not a smart way to print.
Proprietary components are components that are unique to a specific manufacturer, and do not conform to preset standards.
Think about it
OG
Before I start I have begin by saying i am in the roller business for 20 years so I am obviously biased but i will try to offer an objective opinion. I would take my time and carefully research the roller company that is right for your needs. Their is Web offset (Heatset & Coldset) Sheetfed rollers including UV, mixed/hybrid, dampening rollers, inking rollers etc. My point is that no roller company is the BEST at everything! Call in a few suppliers and have them make their case and ask for references, see where they are located, do they offer strong technical & sales support, can they analyze consumables for you? I don't think something as important as rollers should be purchased online or through a catalog.
Call Acorn Rollers in Chicago. They cover with Westland (Germany) compound and are the only company in the us to do so. Over the past few years Westland has become the cheif roller supplier to Heidelberg instead of Bottcher. And ordering form Acorn can in Some cases save you half.
in my opinion westland make sh*t rollers compared with bottcher. I run sm74 in a super hot enviroment 30-35 degrees c(ink unit temp) and the westlands have showed signs of mechanical and chemical damage after six months, bottcher are expensive (1200-1400 £ sterling per set ) they charge this for a reason. I have used bottcher for over ten years now and they are the best on the market.
There are lots of factors to consider, just for conventional rollers. I can only speak from a sheetfed standpoint so here it goes: From my experience Botcher rollors print great but have a shorter livespan, about 25 million. Rotodyne print ok and have a long lifespan, about 50 million. Acorn printed great and we pushed them to 80 million before we replaced them, but they cost a fortune. Bingham never did run right, we had one unit and it didn't make it past 5 million. They were belled out when they were brand new. I don't even know if they are still around or not. Take into consideration the ink, paper, water, and solvents that you use. How often do they get washed up? Frequent washups can cut roller life in half. Do you use conditioner? Products like Febo clean can double roller life. Do you run lube on open units? Running a dry unit can destroy rollers in a week if it gets hot. Varnish is also hard on rollers. Let's say you have a 5 color press that always runs 4/c and varnish, I would buy some cheapo rollers for the varnish unit and apply the savings to get some better inkers. Buy in bulk to save money, as many units as you can at once and always order a full set when possible. If you find a brand and price you like, set up a contract to only use their rollers and they will lower the price even more. Don't forget, they need you to use their product and will make deals to make sure you do.
Question...We run a Komori 5 color Lithrone - 26" We average just over 1MM impressions per month. We change out all rubber about once a year. We use Botcher rollers. What is the general thought on this? Are we changing rollers too quickly or are we just right. I'm wondering if we're using the correct chemistry for washups etc. Any info would help.
From the research I've done and what other pressmen have told me, once a year is about average for changing inkers, sometimes two years but no more than that. Water should be more frequently. Roller companies such as bottcher will tell you that if you use their clean up products and wash up the way they recommend and run the stripes they recommend, the rollers will last longer. Take it for what it's worth. My boss complains anytime I tell him we need new rubber and goes off on some tangent about his old 360's and never changing the rollers, but he doesn't know good print quality when he sees it, either. I used to work at a place that ran mitsus and now have komoris and replace them yearly.
Jeremy,
If I was to say to our boss we needed new rollers after a year,, it wouldn't go down too well,, his first words would be what have "you" done to them..
I tried to get our metering rollers changed after 9months because they start of standard with 32 shore hardness and they started cording after the first few months.. constantly having to screw them down tighter and tighter to get rid of the fount cording..
I had the rep from a roller company in, who unfortunatly didn't bring his shore hardness meter, but when he explained to them they need changing, the answer was no,
He did say it's usually around the year mark for water rollers
2 - 3 years for ink rollers
But it is all dependent on how much work is run on the machine and how well the rollers are looked after..
Even then our company will only buy the cheapest rollers they can get.. then they wonder why they get problems..
We have one printer on the small machines that sees nothing wrong with running a strong deglazing product on the press once a week sometimes less.. that is one good way too shorten the life of the rollers..he thinks its doing them good..
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