Chemistry-Free CTP Comes to Mankato

Minnesota State University-Mankato’s in-plant recently went chemical-free with a new Fujifilm computer-to-plate system. The 11-employee in-plant chose to go with a Fujifilm Dart 4300 and the Ecomaxx-T chemistry-free plate for several reasons.

“Other than the fact it is the right thing to do for our environment, going chemistry-free has been a project of mine for the past couple of years,” says Director of Printing Doug Fenske. “I was waiting for a plate that would work with our old CTP system. This hadn’t happened, and my planned life expectancy for the old system had reached my projected term of obsolescence. We previously had about four hours a day of staff time running the old system. The old RIP and imposition software was also cumbersome.”

Fenske had never put a service plan on the equipment, and bankrolled the savings for the upgrade, as well as new RIP software.

“We researched available RIP software and realized that no matter what we changed to, it was going to be a major change with a huge learning curve. We are a small shop and there are several options available,” he explains.

The in-plant previously had the ECRM Mako2 violet laser CTP system, which Fenske describes as “a wonderful unit, with virtually no breakdowns in five years.” But, he says, the old system was a major mess when it came to maintenance.

“The mess and time of cleaning the processor was about four to five hours a month,” Fenske says. “Believe it when I say I am a ‘hero’ to the person who used to clean the plate processor.”

The only change the in-plant had to make was switching the fountain solution on its four-color Heidelberg GTO 52 from Accel FC1000 to Allied All Star.

Fenske says that the in-plant is already seeing advantages with this new system.

“No chemistry and no mess are huge benefits,” he explains. “We also have a noticeably sharper image on the finished printed pieces. Since the plates take much less water on press, dry time has been cut dramatically. The time savings is huge. Each of the designers are trained to make their own layouts and send their own work to the platesetter. And the platesetter doesn’t go on break, go to lunch, or call in sick, so it gets the plates made quicker.”