Presstek Anthem Pro to Anthem Elite Conversion

[phoenixrje]

My company recently received a notice that Presstek will no longer be manufacturing the Anthem Pro plate. It will be replaced with the Anthem Elite plate, which will use a one-step washout solution.

Has anyone made the conversion yet? I am concerned that there may be issues with our Dimension 400, which is an older CTP device.

 

[tomcatinc]

Ask them directly the same question. There are two possible answers: "Yes, you can use those" and "No, you can not use those".
In first case you go on, probably using old washing unit with washout solution instead of water.
In second case, either you switch to other plates (same or different manufacturer) or change CtP. Old Dimensions can be tuned down to use other plates but become unstable and require often fine tuning (in my case it was once a week and typical week was about 250+ plates).

 

[inkslngre]

We just did the conversion last week. We were the first in Minnesota. Presstek sent my service rep and 2 other reps. It took about 3 to 4 hours. We are a small shop with a ryobi 3304 and a sakurai 258 2 color press. I image about 20 to 30 plates a week. Was nervous for sure since anthem pro plates we were using were running great for our shop. New plates have performed well on my sakurai press. I had to adjust roller settings on the 3304, but after that seems to be good. Plates are a grained plate not smooth like previous athem plates. We are imaging on a Dimension 400. I did have to adjust my fountian solution/alc sub a little. Plates need more water compared to the previous anthem Pro. Hopefully this helps and the plates continue to perform well.

 

[phoenixrje]

That is very helpful information. We had our conversion scheduled for this past Monday, but Presstek has not sent us new brush rollers for our processor, so we are waiting for those so we can reschedule the conversion. We've had a difficult time working with Presstek just to get the conversion scheduled. The have not been very responsive to emails.
Glad to hear that the plates are running well. Let's hope the Elite will be a good plate for all of us Anthem users.

 

[Mlevett]

We just converted over yesterday. Already noticing a difference in how much water needed to run and also looks like we may have to change fountain solution. Runs clean on the old plates but the new plates leaves a frame on the blanket. I'm just really hoping to find something where I can run both plates without having to change fountain solutions or roller setting. We save a lot of plates and have a lot of repeat jobs. A few things I've noticed about the new ones: you do need more water, if you save the plates they have to be cleaned and gummed almost immediately. They do seem to scratch much easier than the old ones. I'm questioning why they have pushed this new plate, really leaving you no option but this plate. I'm a bit skeptical of this. I'm curious about what chemistry anyone else is using, as far as fountain solutions and plate cleaner. They gave me a list of different fountain solutions recommended for these plates, but really no recommendation for our specific presses. I have multiple presses with four different water systems.

 

[JLRobertson]

We just converted, or rather, we just had the conversion forced on us. It's been a circus, Presstek is seemingly totally unprepared to do anything but push this new plate ... as soon as they've done the conversion, they're gone. No help with the inevitable on-press issues, no coordination between the various parts of Presstek, we're pretty unhappy with the whole thing.
Having said that ... we're running a GTO 52-5, and a Toko T-head. If anyone could let us know what chemistry you're using, it'd go a long way to allowing us to get back into some sort of predicatble production schedule.

 

[Mlevett]

I"m still not very happy about these plates, it's taking some getting used to and tweaking with chemistry and settings. We're running these on Ryobi 3302 and 3304, perfector and jet press. Have only ran on the 3302 and 3304 so far. I had to switch fountain solution on the 3302, ended up trying Varn Superlene since I had some here, I'm able to go back and forth from the old and new plates with only a little adjustment on the crestlines. As far as the 3304, I'm running the ryobimatic water system using AB Dick 38778 fountain solution and it's ran well on both plates. Also wondering what kind of ink you all are you using.

 

[phoenixrje]

We've been running these plates for about 6 weeks now and for the most part, everything has been going well. Our pressman likes them, and said he has had to run his water a bit higher. As for working with Presstek, it's been a challenge. We are still waiting to hear back about getting credit for our unused Anthem plates and filters.

 

[Jim Klann]

My tech guy slowed the drum speed way down, have any of you had the same thing happen ? Almost doubles the exposure time

 

[Mlevett]

Yeah that's part of it, along with tuning down the lasers a bit. Also do not use the "sample" plates in production, apparently they are "old" and don't image or clean up well.

 

[Randall Ellersick]

The lasers settings are critical. Being that the dimension 400 has 16 later, the settings are important. I have done terrible. I have posted about this

 

[Randall Ellersick]

Dot Works make a replacement plate called Thermal green. Impressions are up in the 70,000 area. No fountain solution to change or press roller. Power settings on the laser’s go down to approximately 40%!
Wash out unit changes to a finisher. Dot Works pays the service tech to change The laser power setting over.
No fountain solution change or anything is required. Much less water to the press plate

 

[Randall Ellersick]

I have installed thermal green which is made by Dot Works in 4 installation. One is the dimension 400 Series. The other three are dimension 425.
no change in the machine, other than later setting. Which often go down into the 40% area! Total impressions are in the 70,000 range. We have had no fountain solution changes as of yet. No changes in the press setting at all.
Overall the plate and supply end up being about 40% less. Play roll up extremely quickly pop in with less water being required then with the ProSeries.
Dot Works is a customer service organization. I am on call 24 hours a day. I am completely sold on the plate

 

[andy_baz]

Anyone got any advice on plate care with these Anthem Elite plates, we are having a horrid time trying to keep them for more than a single use purpose. For example we ran a job that has a 10000 run work & turn, ran the first 5000 last night fine then come to do the second pass this morning and the plates have gone blind or are showing up marks where the plates have been cleaned...we have been taking extra care in cleaning and gumming them but are not having much success.

Perhaps we need a different type of plate cleaner or gum or something totally different but Presstek have not advised anything other than our normal practices.

 

[wonderings]

Honestly I would look at replacing your Dimension. We had a Dimension 425 I think and while it was good in its day, the company has been topsy turvy. We replaced our Dimension with a used Screen device of the same age. Night and day better. I had to constantly tweak laser settings on the Dimension, a real nightmare with all those zones and doing it by eye. Would have it change from morning to afternoon and need to calibrate again. Lasers are ridiculously expensive as well, even for refurb. We have 2 new refurb lasers in box if anyone is looking for a deal on them (located in Ontario Canada). We now use the Kodak Sonora XP plates and love them. No water, no cleaning, just go right on press. The downside is they do not have the shelf life as the presstek plates did. We used to store plates for repeat jobs and never had any issues. With the Kodak plates we just stopped storing them as they were constantly needing to be replaced. I will take that issue though over the Presstek ones.

 

[Mlevett]

We use burnshince plate cleaner and preserver, reuse plates with no problem. You must clean them immediately though.

 

[andy_baz]

Thanks Wonderings for you reply but im relatively happy with the Dimension, we've had ours around 11 years now and probably only had to replace less than 10 lazers in that time.

Lazer settings do need attention but ive never found it to be too much of an issue, i balance ours up using a plate Densitometer and have them within 0.3% of each other and that seems to hold for 6 months or so before needing any further attention.

I must admit balancing the lazers up is much trickier with these new Elite plates though as you can barely see the image but the Plate Densitometer sorts that out.

My only issue seems to be with storing and using the plates for repeat jobs, we just cant seem to get it right!

 

[andy_baz]

Thanks Mlevett ill look into that make of plate cleaner never heard of it over here in the UK though, and yeah we clean our plates immediately but still get these issues.

 

[Graeme Ferguson]

HI There
We have just changed to these plates and are having a terrible time with framing on the blankets. The blankets need washed every few 1000 sheets. We cannot figure out how ink is getting onto the blankets outwith the paper area. Have changed fount, cleaned out damp, increased alcohol, various things but it still builds up and creates a big mess inside the machine. We are running a B2 speedmaster.

any help appreciated??

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Hello G. Ferguson,


Revert back to your previous plate manufacturer !



Regards, Alois