Kodak Sonora plates wear out at 2,000 imps UV hybrid inks

[Slice]

We changed over to Kodak Sonora chemistry-free plates but find that they start to wear at 2,000 imps (you can see the laser lines). It's most noticeable on flat tints. It's okay on our conventional ink press, but the problem occurs on our UV hybrid press. Kodak has put in a lot of hours trying to fix but no luck. Thankfully we do mostly very short runs.

Anyone else encounter this?

 

[kansasquaker]

Wow. We're running Trillian right now with great success on both our conventional and our UV press. Kodak is pushing us to try Sonora. So that's really scary to hear. If you don't mind me asking, what inks and fountain solution are you using? We're running INX plazlam for 100% reactive inks on difficult stocks and VanSon VS9 (i'm pretty sure) for paper. Neither of them puts a dent in Trillian.

 

[jaed]

Chemistry free plates are not made for UV. The most I've heard was about 10,000 imps for some and as low as 2,000 for others.(can't remember which ones off the top of my head right now)

 

[mjetzer]

We asked our Kodak Plate guy about Sonora and he flat out said it's not for us right now. We run UV and Conventional, he told us the that UV was a problem for that plate system right now. We really like the idea of Sonora, but we have to be able to run UV.

 

[kansasquaker]

We asked our Kodak Plate guy about Sonora and he flat out said it's not for us right now. We run UV and Conventional, he told us the that UV was a problem for that plate system right now. We really like the idea of Sonora, but we have to be able to run UV.

Haha, my sales rep said they'd be fine. I didn't really believe it at the time and sure as heck don't now. We were considering testing it but it sounds like a waste of time. Thanks for the info guys!

 

[tomcatinc]

Kodak Sonora and other chem-free plates are not made for long run UV. I tried all iterations of AGFA Azura - same thing, up to 2000 impressions before wear shows, after 3000 unusable.
Only one chem-free plate could do UV long run: Presstek Anthem Pro in some cases outlasted baked chem plates. But it requires a whole new set of CTP and other problems. For UV long runs, look into baked plates systems.