Once, in the mid 70's, we received a thick bunch of pages to photograph and produce offset plates for a book.
The text was ran on Phototypesetting paper and there were a huge number of corrections, single words and lines that were typeset separately and stuck on top of the original job.
The...
That machine was considered real "High End".
I did send out for that service when we needed higher quality with thin, even coverage of wax.
Especially for waxing Stripping Film, when we had to place many small street names on city maps etc.
This waxer was great for use on the back of the Agfa-Gevaert Copyproof photo papers.
Kodak had similar Diffusion Transfer materials family named PMT (Photo Mechanical Transfer).
During the 80's there were different makers of computer driven Mask Cutting Tables.
I remember warning a colleague I met at Drupa against investing over $100K in such a Dainippon Screen table.
He dropped the idea and took my advice to look into buying a film image-setter instead.
I believe Rubilith masks were not suitable for reflected light photography, the shiny transparent Polyester base would reflect the light and mess things up.
They could have been photographed by transmitted light, but not at the same shot that the paste-up was taken.
Paste ups were usually shot...
Refining in Prinergy greatly simplified complex PDF Vector Map files for me.
Those where geographic maps files that were created in Freehand, converted and modified repeatedly in Illustrator with final, minor corrections with Pitstop.
YMMV
Buying a used plate-setter without a compatible, working rip/shooter is highly risky.
You must also have a skilled, competent, experienced (and hopefully not too greedy) technician around.
Depending on the specific make and model and its popularity, spare parts may also be costly and/or hard to...
I was told by a colleague that he "fixed" a rubber roller on his Lotem 800 CTP by using a suitably sized heat-shrink sleeve.
Probably only a temporary solution but it may work for other quick fixes.
YMMV
Note that different RIPs produce different flavors of 1 bit Tiffs that may be coded or specially compressed.
Many RIPs require "3rd Party Rip" license ($$$).
I replaced the Left Local Board twice with spare boards I have.
Each time the focus position showed a different value, all out of range.
These tests lead me to believe that the Focus Position values are stored on the Local boards.
How can I reset this value?
Thank you Magnus,
I followed your instructions but it had no effect on the focus position.
I shall now try to swap the Local boards, as suggested by Pach in a former discussion.
I shall report back later.
Does anyone know/remember?
Startup fails on Focus Motor error.
The focus motor shows an invalid/out of range position.
How can one reset this value to zero in order to re-calibrate.
In other words, where is this value stored?
Is it on one of the cards in the E-Box?
Urgent expert advice...
The Video You Really Need To Watch
Modern offset press performance comes with several nuances.
Chris Travis, Director of Technology at Koenig & Bauer, shares some details.
View The Video