JPH0743956A - Plate making device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate need for an intermediate medium required for making a printing plate and to simultaneously make the plural printing plates in a serial printing plate making process. CONSTITUTION:A plate material supply part 1 which can simultaneously supply the plural electrophotographic photoreceptor plate materials 13 and 14 whose size is identical to a plate material made according to the specification of a rotary press; an electrostatic charge part 3 receiving the size control information of the plate materials 13 and 14 from the supply part 1 and executing the prescribed electrostatic charge processing to the plate materials 13 and 14 on an optimum condition corresponding to the size of the plate materials 13 and 14; a plotting part 2 successively exposing image information on the plural electrostatic charged plate materials 13 and 14 by raster scanning; a developing part 4 developing the exposed plate materials 13 and 14 by liquid toner or the like and a fixing part 5 eluting a non-exposure part and executing such processing that offset-printing can be executed at an exposure part are provided.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a plate making apparatus, which can automatically supply a sheet-shaped electrophotographic photosensitive plate material based on a metal such as aluminum and continuously perform a predetermined process. Regarding the device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a sheet-shaped electrophotographic photosensitive member, a so-called electronic plate-making photographic system is used which produces a printing original plate (PS plate in the case of offset printing) from a master copy original by a camera system. Was there. The method of producing the block original includes a method of directly or indirectly exposing the image of the original to a silver salt characteristic light-sensitive material to form an image containing halftone dots, and an electronic light source such as a laser. There is a method of directly creating an image containing halftone dots by digitally exposing a salt characteristic light-sensitive material.

Of these, the first method for directly or indirectly exposing the image of the block copy original to the silver salt characteristic light-sensitive material to form an image containing halftone dots is to first copy the printed original including the pasting operation. create. After that, a printing original is prepared by this blank printing original, and a silver salt photosensitive material having a transmission characteristic is used for the original printing plate. The processing of a photograph having a continuous tone density in a printed document is performed by a so-called screen method (the density difference is expressed by the size of a halftone dot area). Then, a method of making a PS plate by using an original plate made of the above silver salt photosensitive material as a printing original plate has been adopted.

In the second method, a copy copy original is created by a computer. In this, a halftone image or a character image input by a scanner or the like is electronically edited by a computer to produce a proof corresponding to one page. After that, a master copy of the silver salt photosensitive material is output from the image recording device (plotter) via the communication circuit.

In any of the methods, it is necessary to have an original copy (generally, a silver salt photosensitive material is mainly used) as an intermediate medium.

[0006]

However, in order to create a PS plate in the conventional example, a block copy document as an intermediate medium is required. Therefore, the image recording apparatus (plotter) for creating the block copy document is mainly used. An image recording subsystem that
A printing manuscript subsystem composed of an electronic plate-making device for PS plate production is required, resulting in high production cost, and to meet the demands of printers and the like who want to obtain a printing master plate easily and at low cost. It was hard to say that they were satisfied.

In order to satisfy the above requirements, simple and direct plate making apparatuses are being devised. However, these apparatuses have a problem in printing durability and require a lot of processing time until the completion of plate making. Since it is necessary and there is almost no advantage of labor saving, it is the current situation that it is not widely used.

[0008]

It is an object of the present invention to improve the disadvantages of the above-mentioned conventional examples, in particular, to use an OPC plate having photoconductive characteristics, eliminate the need for an intermediate medium required for plate making, and to make a series of plate making. It is an object of the present invention to provide a plate making apparatus capable of simultaneously producing a plurality of printing plates during a process.

[0009]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, a plate material supply section capable of simultaneously supplying a plurality of electrophotographic photoconductor plate materials having the same plate material size formed in accordance with the specifications of a rotary press, and the plate material are provided. A charging unit that receives plate material size control information of the electrophotographic photosensitive plate material from the supply unit and performs a predetermined charging process on the electrophotographic photosensitive plate material under optimum conditions corresponding to the plate material size, and is charged. A drawing unit that sequentially exposes image information by raster scanning on a plurality of electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials, and a developing unit that develops the exposed electrophotographic photosensitive plate material with liquid toner or the like.
It is equipped with a fixing unit that elutes the non-exposed area and performs offset printing processing on the exposed area.

Further, a punch section and a vent section for processing the electrophotographic photosensitive plate material for incorporation into a rotary press are provided.
It takes the structure. This aims to achieve the above-mentioned object.

[0011]

[Operation] Next, when a "plate material set signal" from the outside (not shown) is input to the plate material supply unit, a plurality of plate materials are simultaneously supplied to the drawing unit by the plate material suction mechanism (not shown). The plate material supplied to the drawing unit is positioned with high accuracy by a plate material setting mechanism (not shown), moves in a predetermined direction at a high speed and at a constant speed, and its surface is uniformly charged by the charger to return to the original position. An image signal from the outside (not shown) is input to the image processing unit in synchronization with this series of movement operations. Then, the laser light source is turned on / off according to the image signal optimized for the lightning condition, whereby
A latent image is sequentially formed on a plurality of plate materials.

The plate material on which the latent image is formed is sent to the developing section by a plate material discharging mechanism (not shown). The developing portion is irradiated with the liquid toner, and in the case of the reversal developing method, the liquid toner is attached to the exposing portion and becomes in a visible state. After that, in the fixing section, processing is performed on the toner application section and the non-application section to obtain a plate capable of offset printing, and the punching section and the bending section are subjected to perforation and edge bending processing that can be set on the rotary press. , The plate material is automatically and continuously stored in the plate material stock section.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. The embodiment shown in FIG. 1 includes a plate material supply unit 1 capable of simultaneously supplying a plurality of electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials 13 and 14 having the same plate material size, which are formed according to the rotary press specifications, and the plate material. Charging for receiving plate material size control information of the electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials 13 and 14 from the supply unit 1 and performing a predetermined charging process on the electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials 13 and 14 under optimum conditions corresponding to the plate material size. A portion 3, a drawing portion 2 that sequentially exposes image information to a plurality of charged electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials 13 and 14 by raster scanning, and an exposed electrophotographic photosensitive plate material 1
A developing unit 4 for developing 3, 14 with liquid toner or the like;
The fixing unit 5 elutes the non-exposed portion and performs offset printing processing on the exposed portion.

Further, a punch section 6 and a venter section 7 for processing the electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials 13 and 14 so as to be incorporated in a rotary press are provided.

The drawing unit 2 also receives an image information from the outside, performs a predetermined signal processing, and outputs the image processing unit 21.
And a laser beam that is activated by an output signal from the image processing unit 21 to convert the output signal into a laser beam and expose predetermined image information on the electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials 13 and 14 by raster scanning. And a conversion output unit 22.

This will be described in more detail. As shown in FIG. 1, the plate material supply unit 1 has plate material loading platforms 11, 1 at two locations, for example.
2 are provided, and the plate material loading platforms 11 and 12 have plate materials 13 and 14 of the same size (in this case, for example, OP
A plurality of C plates (usually about 100) are set.

Next, when a "plate material set signal" from the outside (not shown) is input to the plate material supply unit 1, a plate material suction mechanism (not shown) allows the plate material loading tables 11 and 12 to print the plate material 13 one by one. , 14 are adsorbed and automatically supplied to the drawing unit 2 at the same time. The plate materials 13 and 14 supplied to the drawing unit 2 are mounted on the plate stand 24.

The plate materials 13 and 14 mounted on the plate base 2 are
4 is mounted in advance by a plate material setting mechanism (not shown), which is highly accurately positioned and vacuum-adsorbed. And
The plate table 24 on which the plate materials 13 and 14 are set moves to the left in FIG. 1 at a high speed and at a constant speed. At that time, since the charger 31 mounted on the charging unit 3 is corona-discharged at a high voltage,
The surfaces of the plate materials 13 and 14 are uniformly charged. When the charging operation is completed, the platen 24 immediately moves in the direction opposite to the charging operation (rightward in FIG. 1). This moving speed can be changed according to the sub-scanning density of drawing. (For example, in the case of 909 [dpi], it is about 38 [mm / sec]).

In synchronization with this moving operation, an image signal from the outside (not shown) is input to the image processing section 21 (the image processing section 21 has an image storage section for realizing a multi-plate function). The laser light source (semiconductor laser, etc.) 22A is turned on / off (ON / off) depending on the image signal optimized for the lightning condition.
OFF) Operate. The laser light output from the laser light source 22A is deflected by the rotary polygon mirror 22B (or a galvano mirror may be used), and the folding mirror 22C is turned on.
The plate materials 13 and 14 are exposed by the
A latent image is formed on 4. Plate material 13 on which a latent image is formed,
14 is sent to the developing section 4 by a plate material discharging mechanism (not shown).

In the developing section 4, the liquid toner 41 is irradiated onto the plate materials 13 and 14 by the jetting means 42, and in the case of the reversal developing method, the liquid toner 41 is attached to the exposing section and becomes visible. After that, processing is performed on the toner application section and the non-application section in the fixing section 5 to form a plate capable of offset printing, and punching and edge bending processing that can be set on the rotary press by the punch section 6 and the bender section 7. The plate material is automatically and continuously stored in the plate material stock portion 8.

According to this method, since the production process is entirely fully automated, it is possible to obtain an OPC plate having extremely high quality and excellent printing durability. Further, according to the above-described embodiment, since it is possible to provide the plate material supply section with two plate material loading bases for accommodating a plurality of OPC plates of the same size, it is possible to use two plate plates in a series of plate making steps. Can be made, and the plate construction time per sheet can be greatly shortened while the device configuration is simple and compact.

Furthermore, since a metal material such as aluminum is used as the base material of the OPC plate, it is possible to obtain a high-quality printing original plate while having high printing durability. Further, the base material such as aluminum is relatively lightweight and has excellent workability even when set on a rotary press.

[0023]

Since the present invention is constructed and functions as described above, according to the present invention, a series of printing plates can be provided by providing a plate material supplying section capable of simultaneously supplying a plurality of electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials having the same size. Multiple plates can be created in the plate making process, and the device configuration is simple and compact.
The plate making time per sheet can be greatly reduced. Therefore, an OPC plate more than twice as large as the conventional one can be continuously produced without replenishing plate material, and it is possible to provide an excellent plate making apparatus which has not been heretofore, in which frequent work such as plate material replenishing work is reduced. it can.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Plate Material Supply Section 2 Drawing Section 3 Charging Section 4 Developing Section 5 Fixing Section 6 Punch Section 7 Bender Section 8 Stock Section 21 Image Processing Section 22 Laser Light Conversion Output Section 13, 14 Electrophotographic Photosensitive Plate Material (OPC Plate)

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A plate material supply section capable of simultaneously supplying a plurality of electrophotographic photosensitive plate materials having the same plate material size and formed according to the rotary press specifications, and an electrophotographic photosensitive plate from the plate material supply section. A charging unit that receives plate material size control information of the material and performs a predetermined charging process on the electrophotographic photosensitive plate material under optimum conditions corresponding to the plate material size, and a plurality of charged electrophotographic photosensitive plate A drawing unit that sequentially exposes image information by raster scanning, a developing unit that develops an exposed electrophotographic photosensitive plate material with liquid toner, and a process that elutes the non-exposed unit and offset printing can be performed on the exposed unit. A plate making apparatus comprising a fixing section for carrying out processing, and a punch section and a vent section for processing the electrophotographic photosensitive plate material so that it can be incorporated into a rotary press. 2. An image processing unit in which the drawing unit receives image information from the outside, performs predetermined signal processing and outputs the image signal, and the output signal from the image processing unit is activated by the image processing unit. 2. The plate making apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a laser light conversion output unit that converts the light into laser light and exposes predetermined image information on the electrophotographic photosensitive plate material by raster scanning.