Prepress
SCREEN PLATERITE ULTIMA 40000 VLF PLATESETTER SHIPS
Thursday 15. January 2009 - Screen's PlateRite Ultima 40000 announced at Drupa last year is now shipping. The very large format machine has been developed especially to service the Manroland Lithoman IV 80-page web press, as well as being ideally suited to sheet-fed and web offset presses in the commercial, magazine, book and packaging sectors.
It has all the flexibility and productivity of the established and successful PlateRite Ultima 36000, but with a larger plate size of 2280 x 1600 mm. The ability to feed two smaller plates simultaneously effectively makes it one of the fastest B1 platesetters available, alongside the Ultima 36000 and Ultima 24000. A full set of B1 punched plates can be produced for a 12-unit press in just 16 minutes. The advanced technology employed by the Ultima series ensures consistent high quality, even at the top resolution on the largest plate size.
The Ultima 40000 has the same high level of automation that has made Screen platesetters the most popular in the world. It has a variety of proven and reliable plate loading technologies that ensure a constant supply of plates to the CTP engine, including automatic interleaf paper removal. Plates are punched immediately before being loaded onto the drum and the registration punch holes ensure consistent plate placement when used in conjunction with standard registration pins. Automatic inline punching facilitates perfect registration on press has been proved to save hundreds of hours per year on press.
Screen UK managing director Brian Filler says: “The cost of a large format press standing idle is enormous and many of the world’s largest printers trust the Screen brand to bring a consistent supply of plates. The PlateRite Ultima 40000 now means those customers can have peace of mind even for the biggest presses on the market.”
The top of the range SX model has new generation Grating Light Valve (GLV) technology which uses production techniques employed in semiconductor manufacturing. Screen uses its proven laser control technology to precisely target a high-power laser at the GLV array, which makes it possible to simultaneously control 1024 channels of light. This vastly increases the width of the area that can be imaged with each rotation of the drum and leads to higher productivity.
The Ultima 40000 can produce up to 22 plates per hour at a size of 2280 x 1600 mm and 44 plates per hour at 1030 x 800 mm. It is upgradeable from the Ultima 36000.