News and Events
Computer-to-plate (CTP) printing proves its value to printers every day. The latest refinements in CTP let you spend less for pre-press and plate-making and get your plates on press faster.
The skirmishes are everywhere – roller glazing and stripping, white blankets, pH and conductivity drift, plate blinding and picture framing. Calcium buildup problems are popping up all over the pressroom. Sometimes it is only a little flare up like plate blinding, quickly taken care of by replacing the plate. But other times it is an all-out war with buildup on rollers and blankets causing poor print quality and lost press time.
My outer layer resist stripper process works fine until I run jobs with very fine lines and spaces. The dry film sometimes gets trapped between circuits causing etching problems. How can this situation be avoided?
In lithographic offset printing it is necessary to keep the non-image areas of a plate moistened with water so that they will not accept ink. During platemaking these non-image areas are desensitized, usually with a thin absorbed film of gum Arabic and desensitizer so that they prefer water instead of ink.
Chennai-based Kapoor Imaging announced its technology transfer deal with RBP Chemical Technology to set-up a plant for producing press room chemicals in India. According to the contract, RBP will provide technical know-how and chemical formulations to Kapoor Imaging for producing the chemicals at their recently expanded factory in Chennai.
Alcohol replacers were developed and generally accepted into use in the 1970’s as a replacement for isopropyl alcohol in the press ready mixture. Alcohol replacers, like isopropyl alcohol, are used in combination with a fountain concentrate to deliver a very thin and even water film across the plate surface on continuous type dampening systems. Many printers choose to eliminate the major disadvantages of isopropyl alcohol, including its health and environmental concerns, the increased cost of constant replenishment and its flammability.
The trend to finer lines and spaces continues to challenge processors of innerlayer material. With thinner core laminate and thinner copper foil, mechanical cleaning — the cleaning method of choice for years — is no longer an option.
01/30/2013–RBP Chemical Technology Inc., Milwaukee, Wis., a developer, manufacturer and distributor of high performance chemicals and consumable supplies, announced today its asset acquisition of RD Chemical Company, Mountain View, California-based RD Chemical has been supplying application-specific process chemicals for the printed circuit board, chemical milling, medical implant device, and semiconductor packaging and test equipment industries for more than 30 years.
Antifoam is unfortunately a necessary evil for developing and resist stripping spray processes. I say unfortunate because antifoams are typically petroleum- based products that we do not want on the panel.
However, the surfactants which are in the resist are dissolved into the developer or resist stripper bath and must be controlled. If this foaming isn’t controlled, it can lead to not only a mess, but a loss of spray pressure, due to pump cavitation.