Kodak Sword Ultragrain Plate with Stochastic Screening.

[europa]

Anyone have this configuration? We were printing fine until they switched us to the ultragrain plate. After that the screen platestter wouldn't recognize the plate. After that was solved everythng prints differently, especially stochastic.

Europa

[pmkprog]

We have it and we have problems with it.
What problems are you having that Kodak isn't really paying attention to.
You share your story and I'll tell you mine.

[europa]

Well let me tell you. it has crazy ever since the first box. It didn't help that a few weeks ago we switched to the "anti-ox" kit kodak does to their processor to allow for longer runs before chemistry change out. They had to come in a few times before they got the replenishment right. Then the scrubbers constantly need tightning.

The plates themselves wouldn't run on our screen CTP, they would error out halfway through because the sensor couldn't see the new plate. When we actually got a working plate off and on the press, everything was lighter. They told us we didn't need to change any of our curves and such. Also some of the lighter screens had soild white lines through them like there was no dot.

Printing things in AM seems to work ok but we had made the move to FM over a year ago and have really enjoyed it.

What problems are you having? Kodak tells us we are the only ones with the problem.

Europa

[pmkprog]

We were using the Creo PTP plates. They worked fine until the pressroom chemistry started eating the emulsion off the plates part way through the run. So we switched to Kodak Sword Excel Ultragrain. This would be replacing the standard in the future so we would be here eventually any way. October a new processor and the new plates came in.
The Lotem recognized the plates and imaged them without much problem. We had the issue of theplates running cleaner and we weren't getting much press gain at all, not even on our 40" press. So we adjusted the curves, the initial curves were too light on the highlights and filling in too early on the 3/4 tones. So that worked okay for a while.
Next, we got a bad lot number of plates(Kodak has admitted this). The plates had a pattern in the emulsion that we can see. The pattern follwed through right on to press.
So over the course of waiting to get ultragrain plates, since Kodak has been behind on production (this has been a consistent problem) we were switched to the standard plates for a brief period of about two weeks. Once we got back on track with the ultragrain, we had our presses re-finger printed to set up curves to match our Veris proofs. Since then, we've seen that the plates tend to print fuller rather than cleaner like they did before. I think I did hear that there was a change in who was making the aluminum, but I can't confirm this.
So where we are now is that we had a really bad time gettign through a job and every time soemthing goes on press that's FM, we're chasing color. The reason for that is, is that these plates have been spec'd to have a +/- 2% window and on press we can see a 2% change on press with FM. So we never know what we're going to get and also know that when we read calibration plates with no tone ripro curve on them, the numbers vary across the plate within this 4% tolerance.
Doesn't all that sound like fun?
It's been a rough six months.

[europa]

Sounds really similiar. We have seen the pattersn as well. I have also seen huge splotches of emulsion on a few plates in the middle of the box. Kodak did admit to us they changed aluminmun suppliers.

We would like to refinger the presses now but I don't dare spend all that time if things are going to change again. The kodak guy even told us to just print AM on the critical jobs. Can you believe that?

We had the fuji guy in yesterday, we may try their plates which sound like they may handle FM a bit better. They even have a cool processless plate coming out in a couple of months.

Post here with any new developments/fixes. I will do the same.

Thanks
Europa

[mtnman]

We also have had a problem with the Kodak Ultragrain not being recognized by our Agfa Platesetter. What did you do to rectify that problem Europa?

mtnman

[europa]

We have a Screen device. Our rep had to send out someone to readjust the sensors. Aparrently the surface color is slightly different so the senor would error out saying there was no plate or the plate lifted off the drum. In the end the repair guy installed new firmware which basically told the sensor to turn off once the plate started spinning.

Kodak rep came in today and made some promises to fix the situation, but we may go with fuji if things arn't fixed soon.

[mtnman]

Thanks Europa

mtnman

[happster]

Originally Posted by europa

Kodak rep came in today and made some promises to fix the situation

Ha!

We've been hearing that for six months!

[pmkprog]

First it was Fm color proof matching that wasn't working on press.
Now it's AM too.
Kind of makes you want to go back to film and matchprints.