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The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, (Little Rock, AR) has installed two of alfaQuest Technologies FasTRAK Violet 180 CTP imaging devices coupled with two of alfaQuest's TrakMATE 2 plate loaders. The FasTRAK Violet 180 CTP devices provide breakthrough technology by offering high speed and high quality in a small footprint at a very competitive price. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's TrakMATE 2 autoloaders, (1000 plate capacity each) remove slip sheets and pre-stage plates to ensure a constant plate supply for the FasTRAK CTP. The Democrat-Gazette has chosen the highly successful Fuji LP-NNV plate with Glunz & Jensen's Interplater 85 HD processors and Nela online OPB's for a hands-free plate making operation. Lynn Hamilton, VP of Operations for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette states, "The installation and startup went as smoothly as any major equipment upgrade we've made in the last thirty years. We chose alfaQuest based on both price and performance and we haven't been disappointed." Lynn can rest easy due to the reliability of the Violet FasTRAKs, commenting, "The design of the FasTRAK plate transport eliminates many moving parts, which is always desirable. We image approximately 20,000 plates per month. With the low cost of violet technology, we were able to install two FasTRAK production lines proving 100% redundancy for our operation".
Nick Elliot, Production Manager and Plant Manager for the Democrat-Gazette, remarks, "The alfaQuest CTP equipment has improved every aspect of our platemaking process.
The FasTRAK CTP can image single or double truck newspaper pages at 1016, 1200, 1270, 1524, 1800, 2032 and 2540 dpi. Rated at either 150 or 180 broadsheet plates per hour, (at 1016 dpi), the FasTRAK CTP allows manual feed for small to medium sized operation or quickly connects to the 1,000 plate capacity TrakMATE 2 autoloader. John Lally, Vice President of Sales, alfaQuest Technologies states, "FasTRAK Violet CTP has proven to be the best performance CTP available and is experiencing outstanding success in both the private and corporate newspaper ownership sectors. We are as gratified with the success of FasTRAK Violet CTP as our customers are, with its low price, capability and attractive support options, which combine to provide them with a very low cost of ownership." The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is part of WEHCO Media; a privately owned, diversified communications company with interests in newspaper publishing, cable television and Internet. WHECO Media operates nine daily newspapers, eleven weekly newspapers and thirteen cable television companies in five states.
alfaQuest Technologies is a member of the IPA Group of companies
serving the US marketplace. For
more information please contact: sales@ipasystems.co.uk |
FasTRAK
Violet utilises a field-proven opti-mechanical system for alignment
and positioning, ensuring repeatability of ±0.0254 mm, for highest quality
colour registration. The design of the straight-through flatbed transport
system has proven to be both very reliable and simple to maintain.
We
are now twice as fast as our traditional negative process. Our quality
has increased, most evident in our black and white halftones and we
produce a plate more efficiently than our previous system. We, (the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) haven't reverted to our old negative system
since producing our first plate on the alfaQuest CTP's. We have been
very pleased with the quality and consistence of our FasTRAKs."