Our experience
Our experience
For what its worth, here's what we've went thru trying no process plate. Just purchased our first CTP unit, small shop, 1994 Heidelberg 72SP, wanted to give them a good try, thought if we could make it work, it would be a plus eliminating the processor and chemicals.
In response to one post, I would say that it is a process plate really, development has just moved from prepress to press, from a small machine to large, complicated one.
I too, would like to hear a believable, real explanation to what happens to the coating in the non-sheet areas. I was told by one rep that was working with us on this that if you don't have enough water when you start up, the coating will go into the ink, if you have too much it will go into your fount, if you get it just right it comes off on the paper.
We had problems day one with blinding, on at first the cyan unit only and then onto other units, not a problem starting up but just if we stopped for anything. Changed fount, changed inks, still happens sometimes. We've ran about 200 of these plates so far. Pressman is still having sporadic problems with rollups and started asking on day one, if we were going to develop them for him, so some resistance there. We've had 3 rounds of reps (techs not sales) in here and each one has a different idea on what you should use to clean, gum, or not to clean and gum. Each time we've tried to troubleshoot, we'd find that the pressmen had done something different so it has become impossible to troubleshoot, from putting gum on straight instead of diluted, 2 cleaners and then gum, using diluted gum without buffing, starting up with coated paper which they tell us probably won't work, any comments? Can you startup on these plates with already printed on stock, if so, how many times, with already aqueous coated? The best result seems to do nothing to them when we stop other than clean the ink off and put the dampeners on quick and let them air dry.
We were told there would be no difference between this plate and an analog plate after development on press, well, we've changed chemistries, tried different things, found out we can't adjust water predamp or increase it on our press and dampening system which could have been helpful to know that upfront, but that one was our mistake not their's. Pressman was supposed to investigate but didn't.
My opinion was lets try them and its a great idea if we can make it work, if we can't, we can go to a process plate or run them thru our old processor or some sort of rinse and gum unit to take the rollup on press out of the equation. Now they want me to run them thru our conventional plate processor and developer and try that. I think if we can't for whatever reason make it work on our press, we should go back to a process plate that will have good strong, readable and measurable image, doesn't have limitations on time and light between imaging and putting on press and takes out all the questions about the plates, as much as is possible in the pressman's mind.
No expert by any means, but like most things, there are pluses and minuses to everything, and there's a lot of details to explore before making a decision on whether it will work for you or not. Biggest in my mind is whether your pressmen are on board and want to make it work and will do what they can to make it work and do it consistently.
This comes from the prepress perspective, where if anything isn't right at press, I first have to prove the plates are ok, and on 2 of the 3 major "no process" plates out there, I can't measure the dots. I know this is just our situation here but it is a point to consider.
Our experience
For what its worth, here's what we've went thru trying no process plate. Just purchased our first CTP unit, small shop, 1994 Heidelberg 72SP, wanted to give them a good try, thought if we could make it work, it would be a plus eliminating the processor and chemicals.
In response to one post, I would say that it is a process plate really, development has just moved from prepress to press, from a small machine to large, complicated one.
I too, would like to hear a believable, real explanation to what happens to the coating in the non-sheet areas. I was told by one rep that was working with us on this that if you don't have enough water when you start up, the coating will go into the ink, if you have too much it will go into your fount, if you get it just right it comes off on the paper.
We had problems day one with blinding, on at first the cyan unit only and then onto other units, not a problem starting up but just if we stopped for anything. Changed fount, changed inks, still happens sometimes. We've ran about 200 of these plates so far. Pressman is still having sporadic problems with rollups and started asking on day one, if we were going to develop them for him, so some resistance there. We've had 3 rounds of reps (techs not sales) in here and each one has a different idea on what you should use to clean, gum, or not to clean and gum. Each time we've tried to troubleshoot, we'd find that the pressmen had done something different so it has become impossible to troubleshoot, from putting gum on straight instead of diluted, 2 cleaners and then gum, using diluted gum without buffing, starting up with coated paper which they tell us probably won't work, any comments? Can you startup on these plates with already printed on stock, if so, how many times, with already aqueous coated? The best result seems to do nothing to them when we stop other than clean the ink off and put the dampeners on quick and let them air dry.
We were told there would be no difference between this plate and an analog plate after development on press, well, we've changed chemistries, tried different things, found out we can't adjust water predamp or increase it on our press and dampening system which could have been helpful to know that upfront, but that one was our mistake not their's. Pressman was supposed to investigate but didn't.
My opinion was lets try them and its a great idea if we can make it work, if we can't, we can go to a process plate or run them thru our old processor or some sort of rinse and gum unit to take the rollup on press out of the equation. Now they want me to run them thru our conventional plate processor and developer and try that. I think if we can't for whatever reason make it work on our press, we should go back to a process plate that will have good strong, readable and measurable image, doesn't have limitations on time and light between imaging and putting on press and takes out all the questions about the plates, as much as is possible in the pressman's mind.
No expert by any means, but like most things, there are pluses and minuses to everything, and there's a lot of details to explore before making a decision on whether it will work for you or not. Biggest in my mind is whether your pressmen are on board and want to make it work and will do what they can to make it work and do it consistently.
This comes from the prepress perspective, where if anything isn't right at press, I first have to prove the plates are ok, and on 2 of the 3 major "no process" plates out there, I can't measure the dots. I know this is just our situation here but it is a point to consider.
