Kodak Somora plate scratches

[sveibl]

I understand that these plates are more sensitive to handling scratches than most processed plates but..........

We are finding various size Plate material shavings being left behind in loading Magnus plate draws when we go to reload.

Some of these end up embedded on exit rollers and appear to be causing issues.

Seems to be a Kodak plate cutting problem.

Anyone else seeing this?

Whining pressman also say that fountain solution is polluted and changing color. They are using a Prisco brand, not Kodak formulation.

Plates preform well other than these side effects

 

[Magnus59]

Have you got the new bar flag on the Magnus, this is required for Sonora plates as the old style scratched the back of the plates causing an issue similar to what you describe.

 

[sveibl]

I will ask the question! It is less than 6 months old and installed for sonora's. But I've seen worse screw ups

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Hello sveibi,


I suggest you take "Responablilty" and clean the plate transportation mechanics, with any metal being CUT - there will be the occasional "Metal Swarf " left behind.


Regards, Alois

 

[Guest]

sveibl,

I have some sites running Sonora in the thousands per month (mix of Magnus and Trendsetter machines, auto-loading and manual) with no metal shavings being reported or causing issues. Not to dismiss your experience, I just mean to say that it can and does work. Maybe check into the solution offered by Magnus59, even though I've never heard of that (I certainly don't know all things!).

As for the fountain solution changing colour... that should definitely not be the case. Are they following the correct startup procedure on the press? I know there is some order to operations required where the dampers are on for a certain number of revolutions before the ink (and similar for stops to ensure trouble-free restarts). Following the correct procedure as prescribed by Kodak should yield good results regardless of the brand of fountain solution used.

 

[Magnus59]

sveibl,

Maybe check into the solution offered by Magnus59, even though I've never heard of that (I certainly don't know all things!).

This is the FCO for the bar flag on the Magnus 400. The original had the metal tip.

 

[RJ Litho]

We run 2 40” and 73” presses.scratching usually comes from miss handling the plates. As far as fount changing colour
are always has a pink hue no issues. We run two flow clears and have not drained out tanks in 5 months. We run Conventional and Full UV inks with no issue. No Bs. we do not put paper between the plates anymore.73 runs 24 hrs 5 days a week . Any questions you can Pm Me.
RJ

 

[Revolutions]

Dear all,


I am facing specific problems at our customer on two Trendsetters.

I am very interested if someone had similar issues, as a pressroom supporter I haven't been facing this kind of issues earlier, non my pre press colleagues are.

The thing is, imaged Sonora XP plates are showing little patterns in dots shape all over the plate - mostly in empty spaces (non printing elements) which are spreading vertically following plate side which is going around the CTP drum. This paterns are visible on the image in attachment and are NOT possitioned always in the same place, so its tricky.

The situation is the same when using autoloader and when I made "hand feeding" the CTPs manually with the plates. The funny thing is that this problem appears on both CTPs.

What I've checked so far is:

1. "Blue rollers" which helps in plate positioning when loading/unloading the plates on the drum - we suspected that some of the dirt ends on the roller surface and make "embossed" dots into the plates, but the thing is that dots on the plate surfaces are not acting like little holes made by physical damage and can be cleared by the rug and isopropyl alcohol when rub with medium to hard pressure by pressman. So they are acting like ink printable elements. They are covered by the paper dust from time to time, but when cleaned there is no difference in making "dots" on plate surfaces.

2. Checked the job files, no information for printing elements were found on non printing spaces that can made this errors.

3. After imaging part where plates are guided by table strips to stacker are not "hitting" any objects that can make scratches or dots like this.

4. Dots are not showing always, they are mostly shown after twenty to fifty imaged plates, when customer has a lot of plates to image continuously.


I would appreciate if you can give me your opinnion on this, at least in idea where to seek further for solving this.



Best regards,
Revolutions

 

[G5MacMan]

Flag Bar, lost may hours of production because of this, and Kodak not letting me have spares. (but in the end V nice site engineers did)
stupid design just like the Finger grips for picking up the Tissue papers