Press Automation and Short Runs...

[kdw75]

I have spent the last 25 years running offset presses at our small family shop and learned on presses with conventional dampening. When we upgraded to presses with crestlines I thought I had died and went to heaven. We currently run quite a bit of work on our two digital presses, but our run lengths and volume have been creeping up. We have a GTO 52-5 that we are planing to replace with a used speedmaster 52 or 74. Is the auto ink setting and auto roller wash as great as it sounds? I have spent my life setting ink keys and taking around 500 sheets to get a 4C job setup and the color balanced. We have tons of work in the 2k-3k quantity range that we currently run digitally, but would love to move over to offset, but with setups on our GTO taking 45-60 minutes we just don't have the time.

 

[Cornishpastythighs]

highly recommend to get Auto plate loaders, Auto washup, CIP3 Ink key presetting, Sheet scanning density/spectro equipment (closed loop if possible), Temperature controlled Roller train, Auto blanket washers, these are usually standard options on most presses nowadays.

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Hello kdw75,



You need to ask yourself which is the most cost effective method of producing 4 colour print in the - 2/3 thousand print run -depending on sheet size and how many Images Imposed , which IMHO even with a fully automated Litho

Press is not viable.




Regards, Alois

 

[kdw75]

Hello kdw75,



You need to ask yourself which is the most cost effective method of producing 4 colour print in the - 2/3 thousand print run -depending on sheet size and how many Images Imposed , which IMHO even with a fully automated Litho

Press is not viable.




Regards, Alois

I am not really expecting to make a killing on those run lengths vs digital, but when we can get a good used speedmaster with less than 50 million impressions for a years worth of lease payments on our digital press, it seems very enticing.

 

[turbotom1052]

Auto ink setting will only be as accurate as the time and testing your willing to put into the fine tuning of the process, and even under the best conditions I think that operator intervention, or closed loop intervention will be required UNLESS... your quality standards are "hang um, and bang um" Auto roller washing does require at times some operator intervention. As far as using 500 sheets to makeready a job id say that too depends on quality standards. If you have many customer color oks, then you may use up every one of them 500 sheets, if the customer is one that looks to play around on press. If there are no color oks and your CIP data is very accurate then you can cut down on the amount of MR sheets, IF and only IF you allow your press person to flip on the counter when he feels color is saleable. Ive worked around company managers and salespeople that are employed by the company that can be more unreasonable than the toughest customers!!!