Azura system, good or bad

[Peon]

Who all is using the Agfa Azura system and what are the pros and cons?

[pspdfppdfxhd]

I'm looking at your mugshot man and thinking you might be the "cons"....(sorry, couldn't resist!)

[tuff_gong]

Runs well for us, very consistent. Some trouble with acento plates inking up on no-dot areas. Next month we plan to upgrade to amigo plates.

[Ernie]

Great setup. I think the only limitation other than the conventional plates we were using is the emultion isnt as hard and the run length was shortened. We never do long runs, but we have found that they will hold up to 100K impressions on a huge job we got. The softer emulsion is no big deal, unless your pressroom staff seriously abuse the plates. You will need to do a drop test on the plates with all the chemicals that the plates come in contact to on press. No processor mess like with conventional, but does need cleaned based on amount of usage. We do a rinse function after the gum container gets down to about half full and change gum. We break down the processor once a month cleaning all rollers and use rags, a paint brush and water to clean the hard to reach spots. Registration is perfect, if pressroom doubts the plates are actually fitting, you can run one plate through multiple times to show that registration is correct on your end.

All in all the best plates ive ever used. Highly recommend to anyone who normally runs under 100K impressions. And for the odd jobs that are over, just make 2 sets of plates. Been running for 2-3 yrs

[beermonster]

i'll be running azura in little over a month after ctp installation

up to about 100k impressions - which is fine for us

chem free - except for a little gum - so that squares away disposal issues, film and chemistry issues

slow - but new version is released at drupa which will be able to run approx 70% of the normal ctp unit speed

not cheap - but for us still better than fuji pro-t (which carries on developing and has a poor image) and i get a free gum unit and stacker thrown in too

[Santa]

We have been running them going past three years now.
500 20 x 28 plates per month.

Love them.

Not much more to be said that what was stated above.
Plate has been rock solid for us and I would argue it's the best Chem-Free plate on the market.

[beermonster]

right well my system is now in and running sweeeeet

so far the only "issue" is deletion pens - we have to mark up ink a varnish free areas, and sometimes this is actually on the artwork - obviously this is for press to cut blankets to, then delete the marks - press man said using the current deletion pens was a good as using a chisel! :laugh:

new test pens due soon

the plate is excellent, press love em, no new chemistry on press, no fit issues, no spots - no nuffink

[jimking]

right well my system is now in and running sweeeeet

so far the only "issue" is deletion pens - we have to mark up ink a varnish free areas, and sometimes this is actually on the artwork - obviously this is for press to cut blankets to, then delete the marks - press man said using the current deletion pens was a good as using a chisel! :laugh:

new test pens due soon

the plate is excellent, press love em, no new chemistry on press, no fit issues, no spots - no nuffink

Beer, yours is the system we are looking at including the plates. The boss is hesitant and has been for months now. If we do not make the move within weeks our shop is history and he seems not to know this, so, today I'm going to give him a pep talk and try to convince him it is the right thing to do and the clients are demanding him to do it. The reason we are in this situation is because the big boss died a little over a year ago leaving the shop behind the 8 ball. His son has taken over and is more or less frozen in place with fear I'm afraid.

[beermonster]

oh - sounds a bit iffy mate - hope all goes well.

the azura plate isnt cheap (although we have a couple of things loaded onto our plate price) and whilst i do like the chem free plate, there are cheaper conventional thermal plates around - so do the sums real careful (which i know u already have). its not fast either - i get about 7 plates an hour from the screen 8000II with the azura - BUT son of azura is out soon - estimates are it will run about 75% - 80% of the speed of the imaging device, which should give me around 10 plates an hour - which suits us just fine here.

i cant fault this system yet - and i have the first longish run on next week - somewhere around 65k - so i'll give a little info on how that goes

[jimking]

Dig this----I output film for 2 40" presses and 4 small presses. We don't have a 40" imagesetter, we have a 30" imagesetter and we tile the film and piece together.  :sad:
A slow poke of a platesetter will be a relief with no feeder or stacker, so 7 plates an hour would be 400 times faster than what we do now.

[Santa]

right well my system is now in and running sweeeeet

so far the only "issue" is deletion pens - we have to mark up ink a varnish free areas, and sometimes this is actually on the artwork - obviously this is for press to cut blankets to, then delete the marks - press man said using the current deletion pens was a good as using a chisel! :laugh:

new test pens due soon

the plate is excellent, press love em, no new chemistry on press, no fit issues, no spots - no nuffink

Beer my Azura friend.  We have used the Prisco "Image Out" Deletion pen which our pressman says works great.  We delete a lot of indecias as a good portion of our pieces will get both mailed and handed out. After deletion he hits the spot with a little gum and then off to the races.

Picture of the pen is attached.

[beermonster]

thanks santa!

i'll get on to my supplier and see if they can find em over here

jim - man ohh man that was us about 4 years ago - B1 presses - B2 imagesetter - strip film - total and utter madness (i am now a ctp snob) and chasing fit over hand planned film is never fun

i feel for ya jim - i cant overstate what a relief it is to finally get ctp, and since my coworker has been off this week i've just left the wonderful thing running - its a bloody revelation mate.

if your boss man can afford it, he'd be mad not to buy it mate - with whatever set up you go for.

[jimking]

Beer, here's the kicker, when the old man was still alive he came close to signing a contract for a CTP 4 years ago not including an update to Apogee X from Apogee2. That total contract was close to $200,000 US. He canceled the contract. Now it is a lot cheaper. We can now purchase a used 8 up screen CTP without the stacker and feeder with a warrentee through Team EPS for about $60,000 with a government small business stimulation write off of 50% of the cost of the machine and new workflow which would be a Zitron Extreme workflow at around $35,000 US. That's around $95,000 and you can reclaim half of that in tax write offs! Right now the only thing left of our Apogee workflow is the rip, everything else has died. I did talk to the son the other day and told him I'm here to help him 100% and wish for his success so we can all survive but he must make a move now or we are history. We lose 80% of all estimates on the large presses because we can no longer compete. There are only 6 of us left out of 40 employees and if we fail it's because of his failure to act. Our plant is in a very lucritive area near the Pentagon just outside of DC and there is plenty of work to be had!

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

Printing owners are gonna have to start listening to the signs, and start keeping up with the technology! If Joe Blow printing down the street can print the job twice as fast for half the money, you better start doing what he's doing or your sunk! Unless your goal is to sink the company and everyone in it, then you need to be shot! :evil:

The good thing about CTP, although expensive, it throws you back into the competitive game and not taking the bullshit handouts.

[frailer]

There are only 6 of us left out of 40 employees and if we fail it's because of his failure to act. Our plant is in a very lucritive area near the Pentagon just outside of DC and there is plenty of work to be had!

I really feel for you, jimking, in that situation. You can see it all unfolding, but no power to make the decision. Let's hope he gets over his paralysis in time... :sad:

The thing with CTP is they can't see past the cost. Can't seem to understand that flicking film and imaging 1st gen. to plate resolves about 4 things at once. I think our decision to go CTP was me flagging to leave at the end of '06 because staying in film was a "head-banging" exercise. It kinda sunk in. But this was after about 4 CTP assessments over 4-5 years.   :rolleyes:

On the Azura, I've not heard a negative thing about them, have talked to a number of people using them. Posts here seem to confirm this... We're Fuji violet, though.