Violet or Thermal??

[lesliegroenewald]

We have been advised that the trend is to move away from Violet to Thermal plate setters. I know there's a lot been said about this issue, however it remains a bit of a grey area for me. The one supplier says violet setters are being phased out and the other one says beware of Thermal . . .
Please help ! ! !
We are a "small" litho printer with 2 Heidelberg Speedmasters (4 and 5 colour). We average 80 - 100 plates per day.

 

[maxon]

Leslie, "phased out" is very bold statement. Bold statement can be abbreviated as "BS". Both technologies are equally good for commercial quality work, 2540 dpi at 150-175 lines. There are pros and cons for each, you will have to determine which one will suit you best.

 

[BillJ]

Maxon is correct on all counts. Violet plates are not going anywhere soon. Violet plates are evolving into low process/no process just as thermal did. The cost of violet platesetters in general is much less than thermal. Do your homework as to what fits your need best. Also find a supplier that can support you. That is probably the most important factor.

 

[spectrecom]

Violet vs. Thermal????

Violet vs. Thermal????

I need to jump in here.... anyone that bashes Violet plates either have never used them or are trying to sell you thermal plates... We sell both and both have their place in the market, the exciting thing is there will be Chem Free Violet plates coming out soon, and when I say Chem Free, normally that means Developer free. The advantage of Violet is the CTP is typically cheaper to build and maintain, repairs are cheaper etc...

If you are a smaller shop with lower volume usage I would definitely look at Violet...call us if you would like to discuss your options. We sell both so I can tell you in plain language what to expect from each technology...

 

[gordo]

I need to jump in here.... anyone that bashes Violet plates either have never used them or are trying to sell you thermal plates... We sell both and both have their place in the market,

Could you provide a shopping list/decision tree of where violet fits and where thermal fits in the market?

thx, gordon p

 

[Eugene Steslicki]

I am interested in opinions of cost of violet -VS- thermal plates for short run applications - ie. cost of plate, chemestry, plate setter cost, platesetter/processor speed, ect. What have you found to work best?

 

[spectrecom]

My two cents, this is going to take a while...

My two cents, this is going to take a while...

We sell both Thermal and Violet CTPs and Plates, I am trained on both as an engineer...here's how both stack up...

We sell Screen Thermal CTPs and Escher Grad Cobalt's...Screens are considered top of the line and sell for twice the price of a Cobalt which is considered low end in the industry, (I would dispute that but lets go with common thought), that's NEW or USED. The main reason for the popularity of Screen is its open platform, that is you have a wide choice of Plates, front end RIPs/workflow and Service. It is pretty reliable but very complex, lots of sensors and moving parts, and of course everyone wants Chem Free, only available in Thermal...BUT that will change THIS YEAR !!!!! Some secrets to be revealed at Graph Expo 2010!!!

Cobalt's lost popularity back a few years ago when Escher Grad introduced the 60mW Violet laser and had problems with the optical coupling between the diode and the fiber optic. I was having to realign the couplings every 3 months until they resolved the problem but by that time Xpedx dumped them as a vendor and spread the word Cobalts sucked...that is unfortunate, it is a very simple design and the most reliable of all CTPs out there. Since all my clients were within driving distance it wasn't that big of a problem for us. The 30" format Cobalt 4 is a great little CTP, images very good quality plates, 200 lpi screens are common, the manual plate loading is the biggest head ache, pretty simple on the 4, more difficult on the 40" Cobalt 8.

We sell Konica Violet Photopolymer Plates for the 30 and 60mW laser and Mitsubishi (Agfa) plates for the 5mW laser.
Depending on volume, the Konica plate sells for $1.00 to $1.20 per sq/ft. Mitsubishi $1.50 to $2.00 sq/ft.
Most chemical Thermal plates sell for the same price as Konica Violet, range from $1.20 to $1.50 sq/ft.
If you are a newspaper and then you can get a lower grade Thermal plate for .60 to .80 cents sq/ft.
We sell the Chinese import Sabre Thermal Plate for .80 cent sq/ft but had lots of problems in the beginning, finally got that ironed out, Thank God!!
Chemical costs can range from $200 per month to $500 or more depending on usage.

Thermal Chem Free plates (processless) plates from Kodak or Fuji price range is $1.30 to $1.50 sq/ft.

For a small printer who can only spend $20K for a CTP, imaging 200-400 30" plates per month (200 40" plates) then Violet is fine. Any more than that I would go with a Screen Thermal CTP and Chem Free Plates...but be ready to spend $45K installed for a used Screen CTP...

I can answer any more questions if you want...

 

[gordo]

@spectrecom

This is what I understand from your post (taking out the CtP vendor product mentions).

Plate costs of thermal and violet are similar (from $1.20 to $1.50 sq/ft.)

Thermal for newspaper can be as low as .60 to .80 cents sq/ft.

If you can only spend $20K for a CTP, imaging 200-400 30" plates per month (200 40" plates) then Violet is fine.

Any more than that then choose Thermal CTP and Chem Free Plates.

So, the criteria for choosing between thermal and violet is based on Violet being cheaper for low plate usage printshops ("200-400 30" plates per month") while thermal is more economical for printshops using more than 400 30" plates per month.

Is that correct?

best, gordon p

 

[spectrecom]

Gordo, yes, generally but there may be an exception I'm not aware of...
....also, older Lotems and Trendsetters have come down in price and are in between the Violet systems and Screen CTPs, in my opinion do to two factors...the Lotem has a very limited number of front-ends (RIPS) to drive them and Trendsetters have the EXPENSIVE laser heads a customer will have to replace eventually.

I sense you are ready to spring on me something that will blow my previous response out of the water...I know you have years more experience than I...

...I would like to add, here in California, printers are really hurting and many just don't want to spend money on equipment, the ones that don't have CTP yet are the smaller printers, the ones with small budgets, I have a customer right now getting ready to buy a Cobalt from me, they only see the lease payment and not the ROI over time....

....There are all the other factors as well, costs of film etc. they won't be buying, the cost of labor and the time saving of CTP, the cost of maintenance after the warranty is up etc. etc. etc., .if I could get printers to see all that i would sell a lot more equipment!!!

 

[gordo]

[SNIP]

I sense you are ready to spring on me something that will blow my previous response out of the water...I know you have years more experience than I...

...I would like to add, here in California, printers are really hurting and many just don't want to spend money on equipment, the ones that don't have CTP yet are the smaller printers, the ones with small budgets, I have a customer right now getting ready to buy a Cobalt from me, they only see the lease payment and not the ROI over time....

....There are all the other factors as well, costs of film etc. they won't be buying, the cost of labor and the time saving of CTP, the cost of maintenance after the warranty is up etc. etc. etc., .if I could get printers to see all that i would sell a lot more equipment!!!

No. Nothing spring on you. If I were a vendor of V or T tech I'm sure I'd pounce on you with irrefutable logic I have my experience but it's probably vendor skewed and may not be reflective of reality.

My CtP experience has been visible light CtP (which is now represented by violet) and thermal (which, one may argue, replaced the original visible light CtP).

Film costs are eliminated by any CtP - visible or thermally exposed.

What I'm asking for is a list of criteria or checklist that someone would follow to decide between violet (visible light - don't care whose) and thermal (don't care whose).

This should be a technical argument so it should be pretty objective.

Criteria could include a comparison of:
Run length
Max lpi
FM capability
Suitability for UV
Total cost to deliver a plate to pressroom (not just the cost of the plate)
Need for calibration maintenance
Choice of plate offerings
CtP service costs
etc.

It's a "decision tree" choice...if this and that are important then choose violet. If that and this is important choose thermal. If neither this nor that is important then either one will fit the bill.
Once the V vs T decision is made then the criteria would be narrowed down to which implementation of V or T was "best" - and a different set of criteria.

ROI might be a bit more difficult to quantify - but there should be some kind of criteria that encompasses the notion.

best, gordon p

 

[maxon]

Spectrecom has already chosen to let everybody know what machines he sells, what plates etc. together with price quotations which may be of course true for CA, USA.
At this point I can only hope no vendor will dare to either name models/makes or attempt to manipulate the users reading this thread. We must all respect Gordon's attempt to extract trustful details from what it's generally known as biased information (read crap) from virtually all hardware manufacturers. We have all seen printing shop managers taking wrong decisions all too often - how many of them would now acknowledge the mistake ? Just a thought.

 

[maxon]

My apologies to spectrecom I was not referring at your earlier posts they are should I say benign, you are of course entitled to share your opinions from both worlds as you say. I am only anticipating reactions from other (aggresive) vendors...