Thermal or Violet Plate – Which is Better? Part 1

Thermal and Violet are the two primary technologies used in computer-to-plate systems. So which is better.

We will give you the pros and cons of each technology to help you decide which is better.

The first concern we all have is quality, although thermal is capable of producing super high quality unless you need line screens well above 200 lpi the quality that violet is capable of producing will be more than expectable.

In this economy we are all very concerned with cost, in most instances violet systems are less expensive.

What about safelights. Thermal plates have the advantage over violet in that they are not light sensitive and don’t require safelighting. They can be handled in daylight conditions with no adverse effects. Violet plates are light sensitive, and will require handling in safelight. The safelight is a yellow safelight (much better than the red safelight we all remember). Also with the addition of an autoloader which are available on many violet systems you can minimize the need for safelight.

Which is faster. Violet is generally faster, particularly so when outputting at lower resolutions as output speed is proportional to the resolution setting. The lower the resolution setting, the faster the machine will image. The speed of a thermal platesetter is usually determined by the number of diodes, the more diodes the faster the output.