German government comes to Heidelberg's aid

[GeorgeA]

It's confirmed: the German government has agreed to provide Heidelberg with loan guarantees that the company had applied for a few weeks ago. The exact amount involved is not yet known, however.
Details: Heidelberg will receive financial help from the German government

 

[Deleted member 16349]

It's confirmed: the German government has agreed to provide Heidelberg with loan guarantees that the company had applied for a few weeks ago. The exact amount involved is not yet known, however.
Details: Heidelberg will receive financial help from the German government

Well this is good for Heidelberg managers.

This will give them more time to remain in the false belief that when the economy turns around, things will be back to normal.

History will probably show that this was just another opportunity missed by Heidelberg to make fundamental changes in their knowledge of the process and to continue a wasteful direction of over applying expensive technology without a clear understanding of the physics of the printing process with respect to the modern manufacturing and economic needs of printers.

Heidelberg's ridged belief that things will be the same after this crisis, makes them a much easier target for a competitor to out maneuver them with new knowledge. The problem is, what competitor will take that direction which is so much against their current beliefs.

History will be the judge on who had more vision.

 

[Ritter]

History will probably show that this was just another opportunity missed by Heidelberg to make fundamental changes in their knowledge of the process and to continue a wasteful direction of over applying expensive technology without a clear understanding of the physics of the printing process with respect to the modern manufacturing and economic needs of printers.

Care to elaborate on your thoughts?

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Care to elaborate on your thoughts?

Ritter,

I won't go into too much detail, since I have been doing that for over ten years without much success.

What I will say is that this industry has a very poor science culture. There is lots of technology but a technology culture is not the same as a science culture. The middle ages had a technology culture but did not have the theory to explain why things worked or did not work.

Much of how this industry understands the processes is by observation and not by a rigourous theoretical analysis. This lead most to thinking that they understand the process but actually they don't.

Press technology, with respect to density control, has had advances in technology but is still basically a refinement of mid 19th century concepts. The science had not been developed well.

The result of this is modern press manufacturers who still avoid working on fundamental science to explain the process. They still try to rely on adding band aid and expensive technologies to try to overcome the problems in the process that they are not willing to address or even understand.

There is a reason why press manufacturers copy each other. They basically have no new ideas to make their older technologies obsolete.

Having a science oriented view helps greatly. Theory that is specific, can be tested. Theory that is valid can be used to design predictable performance improvements that are cost effective.

Since the industry can not understand the importance of theory and how it leads every other industry forward, the only path for this industry is to have new ideas demonstrated. I think the success of one large press manufacturer over others would be a good demonstration. Does anyone (press manufacturer)want to be a Heidelberg killer?

The opportunities are not only in press technology but also prepress. As an industry, you do not solve problems well. Again what it will take is a movement in prepress in another direction where outcomes are predictable and easy to do. You won't get there with the existing path.

 

[Al Ferrari]

Hi Erik,

Some of us are familiar with your ideas with respect to the density control problem. But unfortunately less is known about your ideas in the prepress area. Perhaps because they have been expressed in other forums.

Can you please briefly outline some of your ideas for fundamental improvements in the prepress area, or give some links to other writings where you have expressed them?

Thanks,

Al

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Hi Erik,

Some of us are familiar with your ideas with respect to the density control problem. But unfortunately less is known about your ideas in the prepress area. Perhaps because they have been expressed in other forums.

Can you please briefly outline some of your ideas for fundamental improvements in the prepress area, or give some links to other writings where you have expressed them?

Thanks,

Al

Al,

Since my ideas on prepress are not as specific as the press issues, I would not like to comment too much on ideas that are not well developed. My view is that what is required is to have a group of interested and capable people get together and investigate concepts based on a rational view of the problem. This would not be along traditional lines. There can be lots of good ideas but it takes a knowledgeble group to match the potential of new concepts and the practical nature of what is needed by the industry. I am quite positive that better ways can be developed but can't say what the details should be.

Part of the problem is in how the coloured images are specified. It is very much like how a mechanical part is specified. An engineer in North America can make a drawing of a part and have it machined in India and the result will be predictable. This is due to standard ways of how to specify the part and not due to standard ways to tell someone how to make the part. The specification is related to the result and not the process of manufacturing the part.

In printing, standards and methods seem to be realted to how the image should be made such as in what kind of TVI there should be or what the inks should be or other manufacturing related factors. This is dumb.

Separations are similar to tooling in a manufacturing environment. Graphic designers should not be involved with tooling. Deciding on the tooling requirements, requires knowledge of the manufacturing operation (press, paper, inks, etc). Printing is more like an assembly manufacturing process. The press manages the ink to the plate (tooling) and the different inks are assembled on the paper, in the right positions and in the right amounts.

Density and dot gain are process parameters and not colour parameters. The idea is that if the profile is valid for the manufacturing operation and the manufacturing operation is consistent, then the result will be predictable. There is no mythical gray balance of the image involved but more of a point to point capability to reproduce the colour specification of the image.

Press capability is an issue that needs to be addresses so that the manufacturing operation can be consistent and predictable. On top of that, a prepress method that has control at every rational step along the way, instead of the present concept of adjusting curves and hoping for the best, has a better opportunity to make prepress colour management easy and predictable.

It should be a work in progress but one is not going to get to that goal along the highly defended paths that are promoted today.

Peronally, I would want to work in this direction mainly after the press issues are addressed. Just think of the potential. A press manufacturer who not only gets the press issues corrected but also moves prepress in new directions. That has got to be a competitive advantage.

 

[rbailleu]

what are your thoughts on the new anicolor press.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

I think one of the main problems with looking at or understanding the process is the unwillingness to share imperfect results. It is first when we look at faulty TVI curves and bad densities that we can see how they relate.
We did some work, started 8 years back, sharing information and striving to find out how to interpret, and make the most of ISO standard. Too many curves and each one just saying if you have this you may get that.
At the time we decided to make a simple rule. A target density and TVI (on printed sheet) 17% at 50% tone. This was so that we could have a goal acheivable irrespective of flow (some had CTF some CTP). The results of gray etc when we printed a media wedge were so far out…Â*but this is where the science comes in.
We looked at the results and compared them, tried to understand them and see could we have predicted the flaws from the data. I had never seen any bad results previously, but it was very clear wich fault produced what effect. This led me to hunt for the TVI curves, the actual measured TVI for the FOGRA 39 measuring data. I knew that if i did not have the right shape on the TVI I could never match the result.
But as you say Erik we need a clear goal what the printed sheet should look like, not a path with no goal.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

what are your thoughts on the new anicolor press.

Anicolor is not a new idea. A some what similar design has been used on newspaper presses for over 20 years. Also the KBA Karat and Genius presses are quite similar. As soon as the Anicolor press came out at IPEX in 2006, I had a very good idea of how it would perform. This is because I had already analyzed the KBA presses above. I knew at that time that the Anicolor press was not going to be a press that was going to obsolete the existing designs.

From a press design point of view, the design is interesting. It does eliminate mechanical and starvation ghosting which is good. Profiling the press should be more predictable due to this.

The goal of having keyless ink feed seems like a good idea but one can have that same potential with a more conventional offset press. If the ink feed is positive and predictable and you have an accurate presetting algorithm, then you have keyless capabilities, since there is no need to adjust the key manually. But if you have such a system, you still have the flexibility to make adjustments. Not only in ink key position (or zone output) but in overall increase or decrease in ink feed that is required for different inks and different papers.

Anicolor is too limiting a press design. Plus it does not eliminate density variation due to water and temperature variations. It is a bit of a joke that a major press manufacturer comes out with a new press that has problems with printing spot colours. Feeding ink with an anilox roller for spot colours makes blending the ink to hit a PMS colour, on a variety of papers and substrates, a big problem.

It seems that Heidelberg did not think things through and just needed something new and so it copies KBA's concepts and rushed development. Most people don't understand that even if you have lots of money and engineers to develop a concept, the concept will never really work well if it was a poor concept to begin with. You can't just force a solution. One always has to work within the rules of Nature. That takes some humility on the part of the designers to accept that they have to do what nature allows. This also applies to software developers.

That is where science comes in. If you theoretically understand what the requirements are, you can see right away why some concept is going to fail or at least fall short of expectations.

There is good news. A great amount of performance improvement can be made without great costs. It only takes a press manufacturer to be a bit more humble and ask for help. Unfortunately, there is not much chance of that happening.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

I think one of the main problems with looking at or understanding the process is the unwillingness to share imperfect results. It is first when we look at faulty TVI curves and bad densities that we can see how they relate.
snip

This led me to hunt for the TVI curves, the actual measured TVI for the FOGRA 39 measuring data. I knew that if i did not have the right shape on the TVI I could never match the result.
But as you say Erik we need a clear goal what the printed sheet should look like, not a path with no goal.

Lukas,

I have done a lot of theoretical thinking about these issues beside the practical work with testing on and off press and running production related to packaging material. From this, I have come to some conclusions about what has to be done to fix the process. There are many problems that now still exist in the process and without taking a holistic view of how all these are interrelated, there is very little chance for significant progress. The good news is that many of the problems are not difficult to understand and not so difficult to address. But it does take some action by those who want to understand the problems and solve them in different ways.

The use of curves is one of the problems. Even if one solved the ink feed problem and the relative uniformity of inking of the plate, mathematically, curves still can not solve the problem of defining what the screen values should be on the plate in order to get a predictable result. Close maybe, some of the times but not in a predictable way. The reason for this is due to the non linear and non independent way the ink is printed on the paper.

The press prints the way it prints and no amount of changes in curves changes how the press prints. The job of a properly designed press is to print consistently, in every part of the image. If that can be accomplished, then a map of how the press prints can be the guide to predictability. In such a case, dot gain is not important at all. Dot gain is then only a process control issue. And even if most do not want to think about it, dot gain variation is greatly affected by ink film variation that shows up as density variation. That is why density variation is so critical and can only be obtained by making the process inherently consistent. The industry does not yet understand this. It won't face the facts.

It is great that you have put so much effort into trying to get the best possible curves, but that kind of effort is an indication that the method being used is flawed. I have never had to work to hard to get my TV to work. It just does because someone made it that way.

The general problem has to be attacked from two directions. One direction is that the press must me made to print consistently and predictably in any place on the image and during the run. The other direction is that one must realize that the press prints the way it prints for a set of inks, screens, paper, etc. Don't fight Nature but instead use that property to develop the predictable link between input structure and output colour. No curve required.

There needs to be a real change of thinking if there is any real hope of having a more consistent and predictable process with lots less frustration. Frustration comes from not being able to see where one is or where one is going.

Here is a simple example of different ways to look at a problem in printing.

Of course, this is about the density control problem. Let's make this the most simple example. A solid 20% bar printed across the sheet or web. The problem is the about density variation. Why does it happen?

We have been looking at the press or the process for over a hundred years and we say that the density variation is due to problems with the control of water, chemistry, temperature, rheology, viscosity, roller pressures, plate types, etc. It goes on and on, and it is understandable why people can not understand the problem. Especially when institution perpetuate this view by its experimental approach to knowledge.

This has lead to all sorts of efforts to have better dampening systems, temperature controls, closed loop colour controls, new chemistry, new plates, and even waterless technologies in order to try to control the problem.

Looking at the process is the problem in this case.

Now let's look at the product. We are printing a 20% solid across the sheet and as we run, the density changes. If we adjust the water, the density changes.

Looking at the product. If you asked most people, they would probably say that the bar that shows less density probably has a thinner ink film and the bar that shows more density probably has a thicker ink film. Less density means less ink and more density means more ink. Obvious to a grade school kid.

Ink is a substance. The invisible water on the sheet will evaporate and will basically not change the density. The press might have been hot or cool but that has no bearing on the density. The only thing that directly affects density is the ink in the printed film.

From the product's point of view, ink is the ONLY variable that is important. So the needed goal is to change the process, so that the ink is fed consistently to the paper.

In a real world demonstration, when you properly feed the ink into a press in a positive and consistent way, density is very consistent and changes in water, temperature or press speed will not substantially affect density. You can not wash out the density no matter how much you increase the dampening.

Looking at a problem from a different perspective can change a very complicated looking problem into one that is simple. The problem in the industry is that they look at problem the same way, over and over again, and it is understandable that they can't get anywhere. They seem to insist that there is no other way to look at things. Working hard at doing the wrong thing will not lead to solutions.

 

[meddington]

Hi Erik,
Ive been reading your comments for quite some time, and there is of course a lot of logic behind them, but I'm wondering if you'd care to comment on a few other processes that differ from offset in that they already have a positive ink delivery system...flexography and gravure for example. Two areas of the print industry that are inherently consistent in terms of ink delivery, yet show a need for some form of "standardization" or methodology to adjust the output.

I have never had to work to hard to get my TV to work. It just does because someone made it that way..

Yes, but does its picture look like mine? Ill bet a quick adjustment via 1 dimensional curves toward a common gray balance and they would look a whole lot closer.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Ill agree that curves will not necessarily solve issues with color on a 1 to 1 basis, and they indeed do not change how the press prints or address root cause of consistency issues. However, they can be used effectivley when other solutions could be a bit unweildy.

 

[Green Printer]

Erik quote

"In a real world demonstration, when you properly feed the ink into a press in a positive and consistent way, density is very consistent and changes in water, temperature or press speed will not substantially affect density. You can not wash out the density no matter how much you increase the dampening."


Does a Goss Digirail every washout?

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Hi Erik,
Ive been reading your comments for quite some time, and there is of course a lot of logic behind them, but I'm wondering if you'd care to comment on a few other processes that differ from offset in that they already have a positive ink delivery system...flexography and gravure for example. Two areas of the print industry that are inherently consistent in terms of ink delivery, yet show a need for some form of "standardization" or methodology to adjust the output.

Yes, but does its picture look like mine? Ill bet a quick adjustment via 1 dimensional curves toward a common gray balance and they would look a whole lot closer.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Ill agree that curves will not necessarily solve issues with color on a 1 to 1 basis, and they indeed do not change how the press prints or address root cause of consistency issues. However, they can be used effectivley when other solutions could be a bit unweildy.

Mike,

Actually flexo and gravure are not positive ink feed systems. To some degree they have limits on the range of variation that the ink will transfer but there is no inherent mechanism to ensure a consistent volume of ink gets to the paper. For gravure, the ink transfer variation is at the nip between the paper and the gravure cylinder. Not all ink comes out of the gravure cell. On some presses they even have a static electrical charge applied to help get the ink out. Also the ink transfer to the paper is sensitive to the smoothness of the paper. Gravure requires a much smoother paper than offset for this reason. Gravure also changes ink transfer rate when the press changes speed.

With flexo there is the ink transfer from the anilox roller to the plate and then from the plate to the paper. Again all these transfer points are not positive feed but what I call equilibrium feed. The actual amount of ink transferred will depend on the physical conditions such as press speed, temperature, changes in viscosity of the ink.

Also one needs to understand that the liquid inks used for gravure and flexo need to be monitored and adjusted to maintain their viscosity or specific gravity (both methods are used). Changes in those variables affect the strength of the inks and therefore colour.

Offset has a big future advantage over these two processes because it can have positive (volumetric) ink feed which will be independent of temperature, water, ink viscosity, etc. and it has great positional control of ink placement.

TV. When I was young, one had to turn knobs on TVs to adjust the picture. It was a kind of gray balance, since that was all one got. Black and white grays.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Erik quote

"In a real world demonstration, when you properly feed the ink into a press in a positive and consistent way, density is very consistent and changes in water, temperature or press speed will not substantially affect density. You can not wash out the density no matter how much you increase the dampening."


Does a Goss Digirail every washout?

Green Printer,

This is a great question and is a good example of the subtle issues of positive ink feed.

To start, I will comment in more detail what positive ink feed will do.

Consistent positive ink feed will ensure that "the average steady state density" is going to be very consistent.

The variation in the average will be related to the variation of output of the positive ink feed system itself. This means that if you require the average density to be within a tolerance of +/- 0.05 pts then you need an ink feed system capable of doing that. If you want the average density to be +/- 0.02 then you have to design the positive ink feed system accordingly. It is a performance target that can be designed into the system.

Now please understand that I am talking about average density. One can have variations about the average and variations about the average density are due to press design issues. Some are small and quick variations due to uneven inking of the plate by the form rollers or some can be larger and long lasting which are related to how ink is stored on the rollers of the roller train. This is also related to how fast the press will respond to a density change.

So ideally a press should have a positive ink feed to ensure that the average density is consistent and properly designed roller train to ensure that the inking of the image is consistent in all locations and that the response time is short when making a density change.

Now we can look at the Digirail concept. It has what they call a rail, which is a beam adjacent to the ink fountain roller and where ink is metered out from the rail to the ink fountain roller in zones. These are basically similar to the ink key zones. The Digirail is claimed to be extremely accurate in feeding ink. I have no reason to doubt that claim so lets just say it perfectly meters ink.

The ink goes on the ink fountain roller and moves around to the pickup point. On these faster presses, they normally do not have a conventional ductor roller but tend to have a continuous ductor. This is a knurled or patterned roller that is set about 0.004" to 0.006" from the ink fountain roller. As the ink comes around, some of it gets sheared off the ink fountain roller by the continuous ductor and it then goes into the press roller train. I consider this point as the start of the press roller train.

The Digirail is a positive ink feed device and we have said that we will consider it to be a perfect metering device of ink. So I would expect that the average density for a press with this device would be very very consistent. No drifting of average.

So now to your question about whether it would wash out. I have to say I don't know for sure because it depends. Let me explain.

The problem is with the continuous ductor. The continuous ductor is an inconsistent ink transfer device. (My ITB corrects this problem.) Since the continuous ductor will have variations in ink transfer from the ink fountain roller to the press rollers due to changes in temperature, water, press speed, etc. this means that these kinds of disturbances will vary the rate of ink going into the roller train.

Since the Digirail is a positive ink feed device, these disturbances will have only a temporary affect on the ink transfer from the ink fountain roller to the roller train.

It happens this way. Say you are running at an nice steady rate with consistent density. Now make an increase in the water setting. This increase in water gets into the ink on the roller train and will affect the ink being transferred into the roller train at the continuous ductor. So you have a constant ink feed onto the ink fountain roller train but a drop in ink transfer to the roller train at the continuous ductor.

What happens. Less ink going into the press will show up as a drop in density because eventually the ink being printed out must be equal to the ink going into the roller train at the ductor. But while this is happening, the ink is building up on the ink fountain roller to a point where this increase in ink on the ink fountain roller starts to increase the ink transfer at the continuous ductor. This then starts to increase the ink on the roller train and the density starts to be restored to its previous steady state values.

The reverse will happen when you decrease the water. The length of time and the amount of variation will depend on how much the ink storage levels of the ink fountain roller and the roller train have been changed. This is related to some press design details.

So if one increased the water greatly on a press with a Digirail, would it wash out? It might but it would only be for a short time since the ink feed into the roller train would recover. I would expect some variation in the density even if it is not to the point that it would be considered as being washed out. But the affect is temporary. One other thing I am not sure of is if there are continuous disturbances, would that result in continuous minor variations of density about the average?

Now the other problem with the Digirail is with the way it is normally configured. It has a very long response time to density changes. This is due to the inking of the ink fountain roller and the use of the continuous ductor. To get to a steady state condition, the ink film on the ink fountain roller has to increase to the point where the ink transfer at the ductor comes to steady state conditions. This can take a very long time and that means a lot of printed paper. That is one reason why use of the Digirail can be a problem for commercial printers who want to get to colour very quickly.

Now the funny thing is, my ITB corrects this problem that the Digirail has with slow response and the sensitivity to disturbances of water, temperature and press speed. A simple version of the ITB, which would be a simple scrapper and pickup roller, would make the ink transfer consistent and independent of changes in water, temperature and press speed. The response time would be greatly improved because as soon as the Digirail changes its output, it would go directly into the roller train instead of having to increase the total ink film on the ink fountain roller first.

The Digirail is very accurate but that is not why it performs better than conventional open ink fountains. It is because it is a positive ink feed device. Right now, the accuracy is wasted due to the inconsistent ink transfer of the continuous ductor which can allow large scale temporary variations in density. If you have a consistent average density but large variations, you still have a problem as a printer.

High accuracy of ink feed is nice to have but it is not at all required. To hit a tolerance of +/- 0.05 density points is about +/- 8% ink volume. Not a tight target at all.

I hope you were able to follow the logic. I do have some practical experience with this. In the early 1990's I developed an experimental pumping ink fountain for UV inks. Ran it on press in production. I applied the ink directly onto the ink fountain roller and it took a while for me to understand why it was so slow to respond. I commented on this response problem and the proposed theoretical solution in my 1997 TAGA paper.

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Harold Dahlgren

Harold Dahlgren

Hello Mr Erik Nikkanen, A interesting topic, but tell us all why your ITB is better than the one invented by Mr Harold Dahlgren.


Regards, Alois

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Hello Mr Erik Nikkanen, A interesting topic, but tell us all why your ITB is better than the one invented by Mr Harold Dahlgren.


Regards, Alois

As far as I know, Dahlgren invented dampeners and a high shear inking concept.

Please explain what you mean. Maybe I am not aware of Mr. Dahlgren having inventing an ITB.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Real world close is better than theoretical perfect

Real world close is better than theoretical perfect

As I say I have a practical approach, and there is much I can agree with. At the same time the "link" you refer to between the press and the image does include several stepps. As I understand the that is the function of the curves. The curves do cover the press and the plate making.
Is it not to measure the the "ink film thickness" that we measure TVI rather than dot gain. Film thickness is ofcourse an assumption in itself since the "film" does imply that the ink is on top of the paper. The ink and paper interact, and the paper as well as the ink vary from batch to batch. The paper is a big part, and that again is why curves do provide a practical real world link, although, yes I am aware there are factors that make it imperfect. The variables producing inconsistencies are those exact varibles we need to parry the differences in the raw materials we imput in our production. A stable system has no means to adjust for variation of cirumstance, this is why we build unstable fighter jets, instabillity, correctly handled can be an asset.

To strive for perfection is good, to assume it is within reach will lead to dissillusion.

Letts take another imperfect metaphor. Words have different values to different readers. I do not know how you read my words, and even with their imperfectness we are able to comunicate, and refine an idea using imperfect methods.

It is important with a wholistic approach. We need to understand the limits of our current technologies, and use them as best we can. I do not see it as an either or.
It is good to question and see how things can be done differently, so long as this does not cripple us, from the daily task of predicting and producing the results our customers need/demand.

 

[Green Printer]

Hello Mr Erik Nikkanen, A interesting topic, but tell us all why your ITB is better than the one invented by Mr Harold Dahlgren.


Regards, Alois

Looks like Mr. Dahlgren patented a few variations. Doesn't appear that any press manufacture bit on those either, a generation before Erik's ITB.

Chambon also had similar patent in the 60's.

 

[gordo]

[SNIP]
Is it not to measure the the "ink film thickness" that we measure TVI rather than dot gain. Film thickness is ofcourse an assumption in itself since the "film" does imply that the ink is on top of the paper.[SNIP]

I'm sure that's not what you meant. TVI and dot gain are the same thing. TVI is just the new term for dot gain. The term (TVI - Tone Value Increase) describes more clearly what is being measured. Densitometers/spectrophotomers don't see dots but tones instead. Also, tone patches aren't always made up of dots. Measuring solid ink density, not TVI, gives an indirect measurement of ink film thickness. Measuring TYI is one way of seeing halftone dot distortion in the process.

best, gordon p

my print blog here: Quality In Print current topic: Printshop Evils

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Looks like Mr. Dahlgren patented a few variations. Doesn't appear that any press manufacture bit on those either, a generation before Erik's ITB.

Chambon also had similar patent in the 60's.

GP,

I am still not sure if Alois was referring to a dampening concept which Dahlgren is well known for or of at least one inking concept which Dahlgren also had but was not commercially successful.

The ITB is not a dampening concept and it is also not an ink feed concept. It is an ink transfer concept. It strictly deals with the positive transfer of ink from the ink fountain roller to the press. The ink metering can be done via the traditional open ink keyed fountain or some other ink metering device such as the Digirail.

For this reason it is hard for me to compare the ITB with anything else unless there is a clear description of what that other thing is. I need Alois to clarify. There is always the possibility that I have not seen a good concept.

The other thing about old patents and concepts. Most are not good but others could have been but were introduced before some other required concept was developed. As an example. Manroland had a digital ink fountain patent. It was binary. The ink keys were either open or closed. The ink metering was based on the timing of the opening of the key. I had a similar idea and was disappointed when I saw that Manroland already had a patent. I was then less disappointed when I realized that the Manroland patent had expired. Manroland wasted the concept because that concept actually needed my ITB concept to make it work. That Manroland concept and my ITB will make a highly accurate ink feed which cost much less than what you have now. It still is a good idea to be developed but unfortunately for Manroland their patent has expired and anyone can use their concept.

In your comments above, were you referring to patents of Dahlgren and Chambon. Were they dampener related or were they ink feed related?

As a coincidence, the first prototype ITB was run on a 40" Chambon web press with EB inks. That prototype was overly complicated but it worked and we even were able to plot the response to changes in speed, water, etc. because the press had an early version of an on line density measuring system which also plotted press speed and water setting. It was easy to see the relationships.

Also that Chambon press was designed in an interesting way. I think the press designer must have been quite clever, even though there were mistakes made. The roller train was different and resulted in very little starvation ghosting. The dampening system was simple and self adjusted to changes in dampening conditions. If things got dryer, it increase water feed slightly to compensate.

A Manroland press was installed later and it some ways its roller train and especially its dampening system were much worse than the Chambon. The problem with the Chambon was that it was not built rugged enough. I would have really liked to have discussions with that Chambon press designer. He was going in the right direction but just missed on a few issues.