FM print conditions

[frailer]

Anyone got an opinion on required press environment, if any, to run FM, [any brand]. We went for Fuji's CoRes, which is "conventional with a twist"...Clever dot formation so you can run 300lpi in a crap environment, [like ours]. The rep at the time cautioned against FM on the basis that we could experience "bog-in" in our environment, [big shed...basically]. Some background mutterings, though, that maybe we shoulda gone that way. I reckon the 300lpi CoRes is fantastic, but not all jobs warrant it; only ones with quality images. Wasted on a lot of our stuff, so we don't use it a lot.
Just curious.   

[almaink]

From what I was told you need a Lab environment. So clean you can eat from the floors. You also need relatively new presses. I asked because FM was an option when we got RAMpage.
And was told it won't work with our present setup.

[Sparky]

I'm not at the front end of it yet but our Presstek 34DI runs FM all the time. Not sure what the job specs are for it but I hear the operators mumble something about "the f**&^g customer &**&^, **^^^'" and then some. Looks OK when I get it off press most of the time. I think they do it to control the lo-res crap we normally get from the customers.

[LRob]

we run FM alot. It has its problems, but I don't think you need a lab environment or new presses. We have a 10 year old 8/40, a 3 year old 4/40 and a 6mnt. old 6/40. Runs ok on all presses.

[ninjaPB_43]

We are giving Spekta a trial right now, ran a couple jobs last week with both Spekta(@ 300lpi) and conventional round dot(@ 200lpi) and we could not see any quality change from one press sheet(tried on two separate presses) to the other..  After our 90 days is up we will most likely go back to our AM screening..   Unless the owner finds it worth the money to simply be able to tell his customers, "Yea, We're running Spekta!!"  :rolleyes:  but then that opens the door to customers having a higher expectation of the the work...   Our pressmen have stated that Spekta is easier to register and doesnt show if its slightly out..   I say, MEH!!  It all ends up in the dumpster anyway..    damn direct mail..