kodak electra xp laser lines

[QualityPrint]

We have been sporatically getting lines on our plates that show up when on the press. These lines are evenly spaced and are what I believe to be lines caused by the laser. We see it show up on jobs in screens and darker images. However, when I clean the plate I can not see the lines. The lines are vertical traveling from gripper to the tail and show up in everything on the plate other than solids. Kodak has been in to adjust but are satisfied when the lines disappear visually from the plate after imaging. It seems to be more prominent on stochastic jobs but I'm thinking am screening just hides it better. We have been having other issues as well with toning on these plates and have tried 3 different founts, 3 blankets and 2 inks. It is looking like both issues are due to the plates but I wanted to see if anyone else has ran into this and has a solution or if anyone is currently dealing with this.

I honed off a non image area on the plate today and that area stayed clean for the rest of the run...
thanks for your help

 

[KevinC@EFI]

We have been sporatically getting lines on our plates that show up when on the press. These lines are evenly spaced and are what I believe to be lines caused by the laser. We see it show up on jobs in screens and darker images. However, when I clean the plate I can not see the lines. The lines are vertical traveling from gripper to the tail and show up in everything on the plate other than solids. Kodak has been in to adjust but are satisfied when the lines disappear visually from the plate after imaging. It seems to be more prominent on stochastic jobs but I'm thinking am screening just hides it better. We have been having other issues as well with toning on these plates and have tried 3 different founts, 3 blankets and 2 inks. It is looking like both issues are due to the plates but I wanted to see if anyone else has ran into this and has a solution or if anyone is currently dealing with this.

I honed off a non image area on the plate today and that area stayed clean for the rest of the run...
thanks for your help

Did you check your processing too? Exhausted developer or an improperly set up processor can cause similar issues. Try double-processing a plate to see if it helps (better if you don't gum it the first time though), or just dump and re-batch the developer. Even old/expired or bad developer can cause similar issues.

Kevin.

 

[PACH]

What platesetter are you using?

We have been sporatically getting lines on our plates that show up when on the press. These lines are evenly spaced and are what I believe to be lines caused by the laser. We see it show up on jobs in screens and darker images. However, when I clean the plate I can not see the lines. The lines are vertical traveling from gripper to the tail and show up in everything on the plate other than solids. Kodak has been in to adjust but are satisfied when the lines disappear visually from the plate after imaging. It seems to be more prominent on stochastic jobs but I'm thinking am screening just hides it better. We have been having other issues as well with toning on these plates and have tried 3 different founts, 3 blankets and 2 inks. It is looking like both issues are due to the plates but I wanted to see if anyone else has ran into this and has a solution or if anyone is currently dealing with this.

I honed off a non image area on the plate today and that area stayed clean for the rest of the run...
thanks for your help

 

[QualityPrint]

We have a magnus 800 plate setter. I emailed kodak and they recommended changing out our chemistry just like Kevin had suggested and trying that out on a job. This helped a little but did not get rid of the lines completely. A kodak rep is coming in tomorrow to check out our laser settings and make sure our developer is set properly. The developer was only a few weeks old so we may need to intesify it a little to help with this issue.

 

[PACH]

We have a magnus 800 plate setter. I emailed kodak and they recommended changing out our chemistry just like Kevin had suggested and trying that out on a job. This helped a little but did not get rid of the lines completely. A kodak rep is coming in tomorrow to check out our laser settings and make sure our developer is set properly. The developer was only a few weeks old so we may need to intesify it a little to help with this issue.

If an engineer comes than ask him to fine tune the head i.e. do all the calibration from scratch and when he does the Slope and Curve to find the values by putting the plates onto the press and getting the values from the printed papaer and not from the plates.