Use type CTP developer

Faced with fierce competitive pressures, some printers gradually adopted CTP technology in order to reduce production costs and increase production efficiency. Some printers hope that the flushing solutions that are applied well on the traditional PS version can still be used. The developers used to rinse the CTP plates are "instant use" and concentrated. This article describes their respective advantages and their role in obtaining high quality CTP output.

Compared with the traditional prepress system, the strict control of the CTP system's development parameters is crucial to the success of copying high quality dots. Printers can use two types of CTP developer: "instant use" and concentrated. They have different advantages and disadvantages that should be taken into account.

The "immediate-use" developer is usually produced using purified water and strict requirements on raw materials. At the same time, each batch of developer product undergoes rigorous quality control and inspection. The clear goal of the “immediate-use” developer is to maximize the output of high-quality, stable dots on the printing plate to ensure that the plate can work stably in the printing shop and ultimately surpass the expectations of the printing buyer. One of the obvious disadvantages of this pre-formulated developer is higher cost and larger volume.

Concentrated CTP developer has the advantages of small size and cheaper price compared to "immediate use type" developer. The disadvantage of the concentrated CTP developer is that it must be mixed with water before use, and the quality and stability depend on the quality of the water available locally. Whether a printer can provide suitable water has a great influence on the quality of the printing plate. In most cases, these waters are not clean enough to be used in the formulation of the developer, and even the provided sanitary water will change for various reasons. The development quality of the concentrated developer depends also on the configuration ratio, that is, whether it can be precisely formulated according to the dilution ratio required for the water and the developer. If you do not follow these matching conditions, problems will arise. Improperly configured or contaminated CTP developer cannot flush out the correct, dry, clean plate. Until the machine, you may not find the problem of printing plates, which will lead to the shutdown that we do not want.

Although the concentrated developer reduces part of the transportation and storage costs, if the relevant cost of each type of developer is averaged to one year and other related problems of the concentrated developer are taken into account, then the stability of the printing plate is obtained. To be sure, the added cost of using an instant-use developer is good value for money. Experts suggest that when choosing to purchase concentrated developer, the cost of the developer should not be higher than 7% of the total cost of the printing plate in the current year, and to avoid false preservation. (Text and)