I received an email from one of our production supervisors this morning that originated at our ink supplier. In the email it described some recent issues with Fuji LHPJ plates. I know we have had some blinding issues in the past, but poor press maintenance was found to be the culprit back then. Lately though we have had to replate some jobs at the 50,000 impression mark, when the plates are supposed to last for 200,000 impressions. Here's the contents of the email - I purposely blanked out the ink supplier's name. Let me know if any of you have experienced the same issues:
"Over the last several weeks we have become aware of widespread and persistent issues with Fuji LH PJ plates. The issues have been reported to me by not only our own technical team but also by paper and fountain solution suppliers. Issues are being reported across both the USA and Canada with a wide variety of ink and fountain solution manufacturers and include
· Plate blinding in halftone areas. When the plate is cleaned the problem reoccurs more quickly.
· Poor plate life – the plates are rated at 200,000+ but in fact are failing at less than 50,000 at some customers.
· Plates streaking or catch up in the non-image areas.
· Picture framing
· The problem has been seen on both sheetfed and web presses.
The LH PJ is a positive working plate that requires no baking (in fact some users have commented that baking does not improve plate life). It appears to be offered very competitively and is picking up market share following the problems with Kodak. As ink and fountain solution suppliers we are likely to be called in to assist with this issue.
Please reply to the group if you have already seen this issue and what (if any) solutions you have found. If you have any insight to offer from other sources please share. There are also customers of xxxxxx who are not seeing this problem. We should identify what common factors exist that lead to success with these plates, to better assist all our customers with this potentially costly issue."
That's funny, the pressmen have been complaining about framing and blinding lately. I was doing reading yesterday and the culprits have been press maintenance and I know since we've been slammed we are slacking on that. we had blinding on solid areas and halftones. I was blaming the lack of calcium rinses.
I'm curious to see if anyone else running the plates have seen issues.
I'll have to mention that. We're still in negotiations over replacing Rampage, which will involve a contract to buy plates from either Fuji to go to XMF or Apogee to stay with Agfa, but switch to the new line of plates, as Azura TS is going away. I've been hearing about a new processor for months, but have seen nothing yet, although I do have a webinar for Apogee coming up next week.
I will say the LH-PJ has been the most stable plate we have had in this place. All plates will have issues sometimes, especially if the pressmen are not on board and like to be fucking amateur chemists.
Fuji and AGFA are the only 2 plate manus you want in house if you want minimal issues. I know some of the print heavies are running Kodak but big K sold their soul to get those accounts and the big guys never, EVER want to admit they made a mistake.
We will NEVER have Kodak in this shop ever. Preps is the only remainder of a time long gone.
I going to be burning about 24 of those plates today...will report back.
yeah, having problems here too
Our small press 19" plates and the 24" plates,
40" plates are ok, we don't do large runs here tho.
the 19" -not picking up ink on solids, having to clean the plate a few times
the 24" -had spots on the plates
I put a call in and got a guy coming this week
Just had a plate problem on the 40"
Joe, Frailer - any issues at your places with the Fuji plates?
Just saw a post on the dark side about possibly bad Kodak plates.
Just one post?
Just one from today. But it's only 10am on the west coast.
BTW, we have the 19 x 25 plates. I haven't heard anything from the pressroom with jobs burned last week. YET.
And I don't want to say anything to them out back, because if we do, every little stupid problem they don't really have, will be blamed on the plates.
Quote from: andyfest on April 22, 2014, 10:52:23 AMJoe, Frailer - any issues at your places with the Fuji plates?
Not yet here. If it is a bad lot of plates we may not have that lot # yet though. What is the lot # of your plates?
I just spoke with the production supervisor that received the email from our ink supplier. We're both puzzled as we haven't had any real issues with our plates lately other than the issue that cropped up today. We have only had 7 replates so far this year and most had to do with plate handling by press crews, or a mechanical issue on the press. The problem they encountered today had nothing to do with the plates, but was rather an issue with the press. I'm wondering now if the ink company has been having issues and is taking a defensive stance - you know, blame it on chemistry, plates, or prepress. Maybe there is a bad lot of plates out there that we haven't run into yet.