Alcohol free dampening

pacificiam

Well-known member
Hi,

We have Heidelberg SM 102. We want to switch to alcohol free dampening.

It is Alcolour dampening system, so alcohol free dampening is recmonded for it?
Can it work better on my machine?

If we can eleminate alcohole complitley then can we use alcohol substitute?
 
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There are at least half a dozen good recent threads on here dealing with this very subject, I would see if most of your questions have been answered already. Short answer is yes you can eliminate alcohol completely out of your process but it takes some testing and good support from your raw material suppliers. Good Luck
 
I changed over to alcohol free damping when I put in our S/M102 8col. perfector.Had to change the plate dampers and pan rollers and fit a filter system to the Technotrans unit. All going well so far, started up and ran with no problems. Am using Prisco 3551 + 2 fount which is working ok. All the best.
 
Alcolor is Heidelberg's name for the dampening system, which has been used in Heidelberg presses for years. It does not mean it is recommended for IPA FREE printing. That being said, yes, you can print IPA FREE on your Heidelberg SM102, our company has a product name Titan Elite, which is our 4th generation IPA FREE fount, it is a one part product, and works on all presses. You need to look at your dampening roller's Shore A hardness, if the Shore A is too hard, i.e. in excess of 30-35 degrees, then you might have to change the dampening rollers and ask your roller supplier for Shore A of around 25 degrees, this will give you the best water transfer from the pan to the plate.
 
Alcolor is Heidelberg's name for the dampening system, which has been used in Heidelberg presses for years. It does not mean it is recommended for IPA FREE printing. That being said, yes, you can print IPA FREE on your Heidelberg SM102, our company has a product name Titan Elite, which is our 4th generation IPA FREE fount, it is a one part product, and works on all presses. You need to look at your dampening roller's Shore A hardness, if the Shore A is too hard, i.e. in excess of 30-35 degrees, then you might have to change the dampening rollers and ask your roller supplier for Shore A of around 25 degrees, this will give you the best water transfer from the pan to the plate.

Why would anyone want to use Titan Elite?

Look under section 8 of the MSDS

http://pis.alliedchem.com/files/ALLIED ENGLISH/1 MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEETS/TITAN ELITE.pdf

This product contains the following chemicals known by the state of California to cause cancer: dimethylnitrosamine

Also has a VOC level of 25%.
 
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Disclaimer; I am not now, and never have been, associated with Allied. That being said;

From section 8 of the aforementioned MSDS: "This regulation does not address “de minimis” levels. Therefore even trace amounts of chemicals on these lists must be identified. Trace quantities refer low levels of materials whose exact concentrations may not always be determined because of their minuteness."

This regulation verbiage was brought to life by an activist group called "As You Sow", a group that among other things, sued the State of California resulting in requirements requiring the listing of 'possible' rather than 'determinable' levels of chemicals listed as, but not necessarily proven to be, as the mechanism by which cancer is caused is still unclear, carcinogens. The disregard for 'minimus' means if a few parts per billion of a material could be present, or might form under some circumstances, it must be reported the same way as if the product actually contained a measurable amount of such a material.

Anything that contains nitrate salts or nitric acid (your body, for instance along with a large variety of fountain solutions) that might be sold in the state of California is required to list the possibility that dimethylnitrosamines may form from a reaction between these nitrates with amines and sugars. This happens inside your body whenever you eat bacon, sausage, drink beer, or consume any of the many other food products that contain nitrates (your body contains no shortage of sugars and amines to participate in the reaction) and likely at levels much higher than would be possible to expose yourself to by external contact with fountain solution, even if the conditions requisite for the formation of dimethylnitrosamine were present (there might not be a good way to really determine this).

Condemning a fountain solution that might be used at four or five percent for containing 25% volatiles (a total of .25*4.5=1.1125, or about one percent of the fountain solution total) to replace the use of alcohol (let's not forget IPA is toxic, flammable, and a vapor inhalation hazard) usually used at a concentration of 5% or more, is not just just poor math, but miss-leading marketing.
 
Dan

It doesn't matter how the law came about the fact is that it is the law and Allied is listing it on their MSDS sheet as required.

As for the 25% Voc at this concentration it cannot be used in the South Coast Air Quality Management District and those areas who have adopted the SCAQMD regulations.
 
Alcolor is Heidelberg's name for the dampening system, which has been used in Heidelberg presses for years. It does not mean it is recommended for IPA FREE printing. That being said, yes, you can print IPA FREE on your Heidelberg SM102, our company has a product name Titan Elite, which is our 4th generation IPA FREE fount, it is a one part product, and works on all presses. You need to look at your dampening roller's Shore A hardness, if the Shore A is too hard, i.e. in excess of 30-35 degrees, then you might have to change the dampening rollers and ask your roller supplier for Shore A of around 25 degrees, this will give you the best water transfer from the pan to the plate.

Lars: I personally believe if your going to market your products on a forum or make sale through it, you need to be prepared to answer technical questions that have been sent to you through private message.
I'm not sure if you simply chose to ignore my PM or failed to view it, but I know your aware that I sent one to you through the other post.

On another issue, we use sunlit titan ink when very fast turn around jobs are needed, previous fount that contained less than 5% glycol in concentrate, you could print full bleed heavy coverage on silk/matt stocks and cut within an hour. Now with this titan fountain solution it has been pushed back to 5 - 7 hours and there is still more bleed off then previous.
I guess if you put an ingredient in the fountain solution that is used in many other industries as a drying retardant, you can't expect anything else
 
Hi Luke, I am sorry, but I have not seen any PM from you, can you please resend it to me. We will definitely answer all questions posted to us.

Lars
 
Thank you Daniel, I think your above explanation covers everything. I would like to know who Green Print is? it is very convenient to hide behind a screen name, and then simply send out whatever you feel like, whether correct or not! We have nothing to hide, which is why we are not afraid of saying who we are. We can be reached anytime on the below number in China for any further explanations.

Lars Vistisen
ABC/Allied Pressroom Products (China) Limited
+86 755 3367 8780
 
Hi all
I would like to ask a question going back to the alcohol free subject. Iam a machine mider in the UK operating ROLAND 710 5/5 perfector, installed brand new 12 months ago by man roland. We have a technotrans damp system and the machine is spec for alcohol/IPA free. we also have a betaF filtration system. We are not using a R/O unit for our fresh water inlet. We are currently using SUNLIT intense four colour process(sun chemical) piped to the units via technotrans ink pumps, the fount is stehlin +hostag substifix AF doused at4% to give a ph between 5-5.3ph, 11.5 centigrade, coductivity is at 2300.
PROBLEM= over the working week the ph rises,not continously but by the end of the week we could have a ph level of 7.0+, during the week we will drain off a couple of barrels if it gets to bad and at the end of the week we will have to flush out. we have obviously been talking to our ink supplier(sun chemical uk) about this issue and they have told us that we have a fungus problem and supplied us with a flush solution to to clean the system with,this only works temporarily, we think that maybe the problem originates from fillers coming out of the paper we run therefore making the ph more alkaline.
Could i have some feedback from people who have had experience or may have knowledge of our problem with some constuctive reply as to deal with this issue. The machine runs 24hours 5 days a week. all experienced minders but none of us has run alcohol/IPA free previous, could it be that the IPA kills the bacterial/fungal problems ???.
 
Fungus in fountain solution is usually seen as a snotty looking mass without a strong unpleasant odor. Without a visible mass fitting this this description I think it isn't likely you have a fungus infestation. The fact your press runs 24/5 also makes a fungus infestation less likely.
The overcoming of your fountain solutions buffering system causing a rise in pH indicates contamination with a strongly alkaline material. While paper chemistry is one of the usual suspects, you might want to look at any plate cleaners you may use (some are millions of times less acid than fountain solution) and your plate finisher, especially if you use a lot of plates during the week. If the plate finisher is strongly alkaline, you might try rinsing fresh plates with a sponge before start-up for a few days and see if the pH drift stops.
 
Hi all
I would like to ask a question going back to the alcohol free subject. Iam a machine mider in the UK operating ROLAND 710 5/5 perfector, installed brand new 12 months ago by man roland. We have a technotrans damp system and the machine is spec for alcohol/IPA free. we also have a betaF filtration system. We are not using a R/O unit for our fresh water inlet. We are currently using SUNLIT intense four colour process(sun chemical) piped to the units via technotrans ink pumps, the fount is stehlin +hostag substifix AF doused at4% to give a ph between 5-5.3ph, 11.5 centigrade, coductivity is at 2300.
PROBLEM= over the working week the ph rises,not continously but by the end of the week we could have a ph level of 7.0+, during the week we will drain off a couple of barrels if it gets to bad and at the end of the week we will have to flush out. we have obviously been talking to our ink supplier(sun chemical uk) about this issue and they have told us that we have a fungus problem and supplied us with a flush solution to to clean the system with,this only works temporarily, we think that maybe the problem originates from fillers coming out of the paper we run therefore making the ph more alkaline.
Could i have some feedback from people who have had experience or may have knowledge of our problem with some constuctive reply as to deal with this issue. The machine runs 24hours 5 days a week. all experienced minders but none of us has run alcohol/IPA free previous, could it be that the IPA kills the bacterial/fungal problems ???.

One question. What plates are you using?
 

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