Processless Printing Plates Output In 8 Minutes

Ablespice signed-up yesterday for Fujifilm's thermal processless plate, Brillia HD Pro-T for use on its Heidelberg B1 six-colour and GTO presses.

Ablespice signed-up yesterday for Fujifilm's thermal processless plate, Brillia HD Pro-T for use on its Heidelberg B1 six-colour and GTO presses.

The company, which is based in Letchworth (UK) moved to processless technology six months ago for environmental reasons, installing a Screen Platerite 8100 platesetter and using a different plate.

However, after a series of issues, including the need to maximise productivity, Ablespice has switched to the Fuji plate.

Philip Woodhead, managing director of Ablespice, said: "We were using processless plates that meant it took us 17 minutes to output a plate and taking nearly an hour to output a four colour set, slowing our production down to unacceptable levels.

With the Fuji Pro-T plate, we are now outputting a plate in eight minutes." He continued: "Being able to deliver high quality jobs with a quick turn-around and a tight delivery is crucial for our business.

In fact our first job with the Fuji plate, a high quality brochure for a national furniture company, would have been impossible to produce in time using our previous thermal processless plate." Ablespice has converted all of its business to Fuji since as well as increasing productivity and Philip Woodhead believes it offers the company better quality print.

He added: "With the Fuji plate, we get better definition and a better image.

Not only is the plate more reliable and eco-friendly, it also has a better latent image before it goes on press than the processless plate we were previously using." Fuji's Brillia HD Pro-T plates can be imaged using the same power as Fuji's existing thermal processed plate at 120mJ per square centimetre claimed Fujifilm, resulting in the same production speeds.

Said to be compatible with most thermal (830nm) platesetters and approved for one per cent - 99 per cent at 200 lines per inch (lpi) conventional, 300lpi hybrid and FM screening, Brillia HD Pro-T is a non-ablative plate that carries a latent image with contrast allowing visual inspection after imaging.

Fuji's Brillia HD Pro-T plates were supplied by Mayday Graphic Products.

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