New Plant, New Gear in San Bernardino

Big changes are taking place at the San Bernardino Community College District. The in-plant there recently added new computer-to-plate, cutting and creasing equipment, and is set to move into a new facility that’s three times the size of the old one.

Printing Services’ new 15,000- square-foot space will be situated between San Bernardino Valley College and Crafton Hills College, the two schools served by the six-employee in-plant. The move was to take place in early April.

Just prior to that, the in-plant replaced its RIPit CTP device with a Presstek Vector FL52 thermal platesetter, which Interim Supervisor Dennis Winters says has been a blessing, since it eliminates the chemicals previously needed.

“It develops the plate with water,” he enthuses. “You put the plate in. It comes out done. You don’t need a darkroom.”

The Vector FL52 outputs up to 16 plates per hour at resolutions of 2,400 dpi. The shop is using it to make plates for its four-color Ryobi press and a pair of Multi 1250s.

“We still run a lot of offset,” Winters remarks. This includes jobs like postcards, flyers, brochures and calendars. Run lengths below 500 are printed on the in-plant’s Konica Minolta printers.

The shop also replaced a 22-year-old cutter with a new 30˝ Perfecta 76.

“We just needed to get up to date,” he explains. “This cutter’s so much better and faster.”

The ability to program the cutter is a big time saver, he says, as is its 50-strokes-per-minute knife speed.

“We’re done in half the time,” Winters boasts.

Also new are creasing and numbering machines from Count Machinery.

“We do so many brochures that people were complaining about the cracking,” he says. Since installing the creaser, pieces look much nicer, he says.

Next up, Winters hopes to add a folder and a UV coater, which will enable the in-plant to keep even more work in-house. He’s thankful for the support of Chancellor Bruce Baron, Dr. Glen Kuck and the San Bernardino Community College District board of trustees in helping the in-plant to get the equipment it needs.