Eric, it is great that you had the determination to bring to light your concept of what could be a large step ahead of the current system presses utilise today.
I'm in no way knocking what you have developed, nor do I have enough in-depth knowledge of how your concept works to criticise. I will say though that your system would have to have a true zero setting that can be replicated over the life of a press. Not relying on any form of ink key blade to ink ball as you then fall back to the cons of whats currently utilised, as blades wear out settings alter.
As Green print said in his post, the ability to have total ink feed control from light coverage area's through to heavy coverage is critical.
It's strange that the manufacturers still insist on shipping presses out with the out dated system currently in use. They have pumped so much development into designs that reduce make ready times/monitor print quality etc, but one fundamental area that still causes ink feed inconsistency's has not been altered.
The I.Mer system at this point looks as if it could well be heads and shoulders above whats standard.
Lukew, of course there are a lot of issues that are needed to be provided in a concept for it to be eventually successful. These issues are both theoretical and practical.
In the case of the ITB, the theory of what was causing ink water balance and its related density variation was something I developed back in the late 1980's. The ITB was a direct outcome of trying to think of a way to easily test this theory.
So the first prototype, which was quite crude, was tested on a press in 1991 and was successful in confirming the theory but it was certainly not in a condition to be a production technology. Later in the 1990's, I revised the ITB concept so it would be simpler, less expensive and more effective so it had the potential to be a production technology that could be even an after market modification to an offset press.
So please understand, the theory came first and the technical approach came later. When one has a valid theory, then one can develop technology that will have predictable performance and this theory can also evaluate other new concepts and have a good idea how they will perform before they are even tested.
The ITB is only one of many possible ways to solve the problem of inconsistent ink feed and the causes of ink water balance and its related density variation but it is a very low cost way to do it. More expensive methods I can think of might be better but for practical reasons they would not justify the cost at this time.
So when I look at the I.Mer concept, I already have a good idea of how it will perform. My view is that basically the ITB will out perform it in a fundamental way at a much reduced cost.
In the ITB, ideally the blade does not touch the ink fountain roller. For practical reasons, the blade will have small points of contact with the ink fountain roller that are used to maintain a consistent gap. Wear should not be an issue since the blade pressure against the ink fountain roller is low.
Also, with the ITB, there is never any contact between the roller train and the ink fountain roller due to a gap between the ink fountain roller and the pickup roller. For this and the above reason, a zero set will be consistent and predictable but yes it does require calibration. Ink feed from the zero point will be consistent and proportional from low coverage to high coverage.
I find it strange that the industry can accept all kinds of imperfect technologies but with my concept, there is the expectation that perfection needs to be met before it would be take seriously. The real issue is not about perfection but about how much improvement and at what cost.
I welcome the I.Mer concept even though I think it is lacking in specific areas of performance. It still shows that there are other ideas that can help the process. An industry that has accepted an existing technology that is over 160 years old as being state of he art, such as the existing ductor, is an industry that has not been able to think too deeply about these problems.
So yes, I still have to comment on these issues because I am still the only one who thinks this way and if I stop, nothing for sure will happen and digital printing will take over from offset.
So I am happy to hear about the performance of the I. Mer concept. It helps people realize that changes can have positive effects. The same goes for the Anicolor press. It now demonstrates that offset lithography can have very short makereadies. I don't think either system is the right direction but they demonstrate potential to a group of people who are not so good at imagining what can be done.
I would like to see more experimentation on new ideas. Let the best ideas win.
Like the messy issues you referred to. 
