Free development of plate is an indispensable part of the printing process

Although Agfa was not the first company involved in the development-free plate, its Azura free development plate has brought a huge commercial impact.

Agfa is entering a period of large-volume production-free plates. The Belgian company has now focused on this area and has provided a great deal of support for the commercialization of Azura plates.

The technical advantages of free-forging printing plates are obvious. With the continuous development of ctp technology, Agfa has launched the Azura printing plate in a timely manner. According to Picon's statistics, ctp technology currently has occupied 74% of the market share, and Agfa also believes that this figure is more conservative. By the end of this year, this figure will reach 80%. The need for no-development technology is to further reduce the various potential costs of printing, which has surpassed only the concern for system life and depreciation.

cut costs

Azura is designed to reduce the cost of plate development. It is based on a standard aluminum substrate and is coated with a layer of pearl latex with an infrared sensitizer and pigment. The layer is visible. It absorbs heat from the Acento thermal laser and the pearl emulsion of the graphic area is thermally fused and imaged on the substrate.

The plate will then be fed to the gluing unit, coated with C85 glue. The purpose of the gluing is to protect the image area and remove unexposed parts of the plate. The glue came out of a 20 litre bottle, indicating that this unit does not require any tube feeding. After these glues flow past the plate, they return to the bottle. However, when there is only half of the glue in the plastic bottle, the bottle will be replaced because the remaining glue is too sticky. In order to solve this problem, the operator will add 10 liters of water to the plastic bottle and tap a switch to enter the automatic cleaning stage and the liquid will return to the bottle.

Although the glue itself has a certain degree of danger, it must be properly removed. However, compared with the development tank, the cost of removing the glue is very small. Development requires a variety of developer solutions, but also in the process of continuous supplementation to prevent oxidation. Even if its cost is not very large, it is, after all, a fixed cost to bear.

The use of a free plate, although it can save the development equipment and the development of potions, adds an additional expense, that is Azura plate is about 20% more expensive than the standard Thermolite, because it has not reached a certain economic scale. The increase in the price of such a plate can be balanced with the cost savings of some removed developing elements, but the difference is that the developing machine is not cleaned, which saves a lot of equipment maintenance costs. For many companies, equipment maintenance is One of the most troubling things.

Eliminate the development of syrup

Do not develop medicine, more environmentally friendly. At present, many printing companies have a strong sense of environmental protection. They hope to use products with green certification, and the free printing plates meet this demand. When Azura conducted beta testing in the UK, it cooperated with the World Wildlife Fund (World Wildlife Fund), and people were given extra attention to the environment.

More and more suppliers are trying hard to provide green products, which undoubtedly brings new choices to some small printing companies.

The imaging of the Azura plate requires more energy, which means that the output of the plate output on the Acento plate maker will be reduced from 11 in the E model and 11 in the S model to 5 to 6 in the hour, instead of S. The 20 editions of the model.

Without the developer, the footprint of the ctp is significantly smaller. The small size is very important for some small printing plants. A 700mm long, 850mm wide CTP device only accounts for half of the space of most of the developing machines. The advantages are even more pronounced compared to polyester version processors, which also require preheat and pre-wash units.

Physical processing

People's controversy over Azura focuses on its development-free portion. The presence of the gluing unit means that the printing plate process is a physical process and Agfa defines it more literally as a "chemical-free" printing plate, but it is actually called a chrome-free printing plate.

At present, it is unlikely that it can be more accurately defined. Even for a pelletized anodized plate, don't you glue it? So it is very suitable to call it free of the printing plate.

Mature technology

Ultimately, this technology is not really important enough for everyone to discuss as a mature technology. The most important thing is: He has brought us a more stable, more economical but also more environmentally friendly method of printing plate imaging, it uses a free development method.

But in the end who will use this technology? Agfa is targeting its small and medium-sized B2 format printers, which use 350 plates per week and print about 100,000 in India. This device is suitable for those factory areas where the plate making part is at a certain distance from the surrounding environment. The cleaning, small footprint and other features make it very suitable for large retail and street shops that do not require high prepress technology.

Agfa's confidence

Agfa has a great deal of confidence in the Azura/Acento family of products. Now the market is already familiar with these products and is beginning to adopt them. As a modified version of Thermolite Plus, the Acento direct plate-making machine is actually a separate product, and C85 glue has been developed to incorporate the glue application into the device.

They did not invest in special glue coaters and developing machines in the shape of glue. They were still using existing glue.

Agfa plans to add 20 more units next year (last year it sold 40-45 ordinary B2 quad ctp systems) and exhibited the B1 model at GraphExpo. The customers of this model will mainly come from B2 format printers, and these manufacturers have already completed the transition from film to direct direct printing. Whether or not they are prepared to accept the exemption system and wait and see, Agfa is full of confidence.