For those with two platesetters...

[prepressdork]

Hi everyone,

I am considering adding a second platesetter for redundancy (and possibly increased throughput) and I was curious for those with two platesetters, what does your plating workflow look like? By that I mean:

1. Do you use both platesetters all the time (load balancing)?
2. Do you use one platesetter only and when it breaks down, you move everything to the second platesetter until the first one is repaired?
3. Do you send certain kinds of work to one platesetter and the rest of your work to the other?
4. Other scenario?

Thank you in advance,
pd

 

[dabob]

Well . .. . we've done everything except load balancing now that they are settled in we use one a couple of days a week and the other the rest . . . mostly we got the 2nd one for redundancy

 

[Joe]

Both platesetters all the time just to keep up.

 

[zoran]

Second one is a backup only for us

 

[prepressdork]

Second one is a backup only for us

Hi Zoran. So with you only using it for backup purposes, do you occasionally use it just to ensure it's working (sort of a fitness test)?

Thanks,
pd

 

[zoran]

Absolutely. Just recently we discovered in our "fitness" test that processor was not working correctly. I guess due to inactivity hoses got clogged with gum. We had to do thorough cleanup and blow the hoses out. After proper maintenance we are back in business with both. We adjusted our fitness test to once a week.

 

[Repro_Pro]

Our second platesetter is of the same model as the first (Lotem 800v) but has an offline processor.
Both machines are quite old, so the second one is a must-have backup machine, but when something unfamiliar goes wrong with the main (online) platesetter, I usually start an elimination process by switching the suspected board/part with the (known to be good) one from the offline machine.
This redundancy also allows us to test different plates/chemistries combinations without upsetting the normal workflow.