Xante Platemaker 5.0 or 6.0

[Minuteman Press]

We are thinking about purchasing the Xante Platemaker 6.0. We produce around 30-40 plates a week and 98% of our jobs are under 5,000 runs and easy 1 or 2 ink color jobs. We rarely have tight registration or jobs with big screens. I've been told 30-40 plates a week may be too much for the Kimosetter platemaker.

Pros or Cons with the Xante Platemaker?

Pros or Cons with the IQueue Software?

Any other CTP Platemaker recommendations? Thanks for any feedback!

 

[Green Printer]

We purchased an epson inkjet plastic plate system from Genesis+BestChem+Habitat. Cost us about $2,400.00.
You can use both sides of the plates. We use the plastic plates on our ABDICK. Have done runs of over 10,000 pcs. very good halftones at 133lpi and 150 lpi. You don't get any of the splatter and small dots like you get with a laser toner plate maker. You don't have to purchase any of the special cleaner to remove the toner splatter.

We use the Universal fountain solution and the dense black ink as well as many pms colors all from Bestchem.

Before we purchased I talked to a printer in Michigan who prints newsprint runs of 5,500 sheets and has not worn out a plate. I figured if he can run that crap and have no troubles it must be work very well.

No chemicals no processer to clean. I can use the epson for proofs also.

We have been using metal CTP for our larger presses since 1998 and is was getting costly to make the small plates for the ABDick. Going to the plastic plates made on the epson has cut our plate cost from $7.85 to $1.50 per side. It will take less than making 200 2 sided plates to recover my investment verses making these small plates on our metal CTP system(AGFA).

 

[Minuteman Press]

Do you have any problems with the print heads or the nozzles clogging? Do you have to clean it a lot? Are heating up the plates a pain??

 

[Green Printer]

I use the Epson PRO 3880 have never had any problems with the heads or nozzles clogging. Any of our epson printers that use the K3 inks has never had a nozzle or clogging issue.
You can use any of the colors to make the plates some may be hard to see but they all work. It is the resins and not the pigment that is the functioning portion.

To do 2 sides of the plate your print let it set for about 5 minutes then run it through the epson again. If you are making multiple plates do all one side then by the time they are done the first one will be dry enough to run through the second time.

If you already have a laminator just get some teflon sheets about 5 mil thick put your plates between the teflon sheets and run them through. You can reuse the teflon sheets hundreds of times.

I bought a refurbished Epson 3880. The rip software was $700.00 (you supply your own computer nothing fancy just make sure it has 4 gig of ram and windows xp or higher system for $650.00 or less)
This is the laminator Amazon.com: Sky 480R6 Photo Pouch Laminator 18.9" Laminating Machine 6 Rollers: Office Products about $800.00

The Rip installation was a breeze. The rip manufacturer has a live hookup to assist you in setting up.

My initial pressroom investment included, 100 plates, 1 gallon of Universal fountain solution, 5# Habitat Dense black ink , 2.5 gallon of No Odor wash, 1# transwhite ink for the old inks, total $392.00.

On press I pre-wet the plate with a weber wipe wetted with mixed fountain solution. Usually the second sheet out is good.

The old inks I have are from various suppliers and up to 20 years old. Every time I want to use the old inks I just added 1 oz of the transwhite per pound and they have worked. One can was a special purple from 1991 it had about a .250 skin on top. I took off the skin added the transwhite and it worked just like a new can. I can now use up all of that old ink on the ABDick.

The ink,fountain solution and no odor wash is Made in the USA.

In my opinion this system of the plastic plates with the BestChem Universal poly fountain, Habitat ink and the No odor wash is a no brainer. Easy to use very good quality and the crowning point low cost to operate for both plate making and press operation along with no click charges.