CTP Technology on Drupa 2000 (Part 2)

When the printing roller's water roller wets the plate, the unexposed part is weaker and it is easily taken away by the printer's ink roller and quickly dissolves in the ink. In the printing machine 1, the part of the material dissolved in the ink can be taken away by the test paper before, and the advantage is that the printing can be used repeatedly. Komori's Project D presses use this technology, and Agfa, Asahi and Kodak PolyLight have demonstrated the plates. Although their print resistance is not too high, they are promising in the short-run market.
Fourth, UV direct plate-making machine UV plate-making machine has few competitors at the exhibition, only BasysPrint company's products are currently unique, the company's new product at the exhibition is a smaller device than the previous product. Although Puron-Eskofot’s Dicon gave the audience a deeper impression, it has not yet been introduced to the market and it is still too early to judge its quality. Global Graphics is the third company to use UV technology. This time no product is exhibited and people have no impression on it.
Fifth, the product size is more abundant The initial development of the CTP system is its 8 and 4 page format size products, but the CTP products we see at the exhibition are more plentiful in size, such as Agfa's Xcalibur, Barco's Mondrian and Luscher's Xpose 180 from Switzerland is a super large-format CTP system. The market goals for these systems are Heidelberg's 24-page format printing, Man Roland's 48-page format press, and KBA's 64-page format press.
It is no easy task to image on such a plate. Each company has its own unique technology. Barco uses a flattening technology. Agfa uses an external drum technology. Luscher uses an internal drum structure. , External drum exposure.
In addition to the large-scale development of small-sized equipment CTP systems, small-sized equipment has also emerged, and some companies have introduced B3 format systems. HighWater introduced the Piatinum 2218 system, a B3-format platform system that uses a blue laser as the light source. Global Graphics has introduced the ICG Cirrus2 system, which has been increased in size B3, using internal drum technology. There is also a lot of people concerned about the Pisces company, its JetPlate system is the use of Epson's Stylus 3000 printing technology, inkjet printing for CTP plate making.
Six, polyester version using polyester version CTP plate making is not new. Twenty years ago, some computer typeset device manufacturers used 3M's Onyx version for further improvements on Linoterm and EditWriter typewriters. Despite this, people’s efforts in this area have not stopped. At Drupa 2000, we saw that major printer manufacturers exhibited polyester plates and printing proofs, which aroused viewers' interest in new polyester plate applications.
Turning many years ago, Purup-Eskofot, Scanview, Agfa and other manufacturers have already introduced the polyester version, and believe that it is still very lively for the metal version. However, most people in the industry believe that the polyester version is only a second-rate product compared with the metal plate, and cannot be used to replace high-grade prints with metal plates. Through Drupa2000, we believe this view should change.
This change comes from technological advances in all aspects, the quality of the polyester version has been greatly improved, and a new generation of presses has been able to use the polyester version. This result has been produced in particular among printer manufacturers, and they believe that the market for polyester plates is growing.
The printing press tends to be more automated and easier to use for the polyester version. The upper version is more automated and the pressure is more accurate. This is more important than the metal version in the polyester version.
In addition, the coordination and cooperation between polyester plates and printing presses are getting better and better. For example, Heidelbergeg's newly introduced Primesetter imager uses a Silver Digiplate polyester version that Mitsubishi specializes in. This plate is 12 mils thick, the same as the aluminum plate, making it easy for press operators to alternate between these two different plates between the polyester and metal plates.
Similarly, more and more imagesetters can accurately cut the printing plate to the size required by the printing press, and complete the drilling work at the machine. Therefore, when this type of printing plate leaves the imagesetter, no other operations are required and the printing on the top of the table is immediately completed.
Another reason for the better printing plate is that the printing plate has been improved. At the exhibition, Agfa launched a new type of polyester: Compared with the previous generation, Agfa's SetPrint Plus has greatly improved its small dot reproduction capabilities, and it has also been exposed to tolerance, and the balance between ink and ink has become easier to grasp.
Limitations The improvement of the above issues does not mean that the use of polyester plates has become very easy. For example, ink balance is more difficult for polyester and metal plates. Therefore, it is necessary to perform dampening before inking.
At present, although black-and-white printing is mostly used for polyester printing, color printing with polyester printing is also increasing. According to the experience of foreign companies, when the number of prints is less than 25,000 impressions, and the cable is below 175dpi, using the speedmaster 74 and 102 size presses of Heidelberg, it is entirely feasible to use the polyester version for four-color printing.