Jumped on Starlight bandwagon.

[ebscreen]

I'd kill to see a side by side with a 3140 and Murakami SP1400. Microscope, eom, durability tests, the whole nine.
If it's on par with a metal halide then obviously it's a no brainer.

[Alex M]

Allen's counter part at Murakami, Walt tested SP 1400 on the starlight at one of our dealer open houses. If you want I bet he could email the info over.

[GraphicDisorder]

I can only comment on MH VS our Starlight and I am sure we aren't as precise as some of you guys so take it for what it is, but IMO the screens are looking as good or better.  Any of you can come take mine for a drive if you like if your remotely close.  I am sure M&R has them to play with as well.  Our shop is a open door unless your Barnes or have him with you.

I don't think we have our times EXACTLY dialed yet but we are playing with it adding and subtracting a second seeing how it reacts.  I think we are close. 

[jvanick]

I'll extend an invitation for anybody in northern illinois/southern wi.

we're not a huge shop (and we work out of the garage), but you're more than welcome to come and see it/try it/bring screens to expose.

-J

[bimmridder]

Similar here. Anyone is welcome. Have a two head STE running, and a Kiwo I-Jet right next to it.

[ZooCity]

In that video that was posted awhile ago, Richard Greaves is endorsing LED systems.  Pretty much nuff said regarding the imaging side of it.  He mentioned that, way up close, you can see small effects on fine lines from the scattered light out of the array but that sounds like a natural thing and wouldn't effect textile printers though LED may not be ready for graphics printers just yet due to this.

Durability of the stencil is still paramount though and it still doesn't sound like a seasoned DC/WB shop has chimed in on long run performance.

So when is someone coming out with an LED drop in bulb for 5k Halide units?  I don't have a good enough ROI to buy a new LED unit with our situation but I sure would pony up a grand or so for retrofit.  Guessing there might not be a way to used LED as a point source yet.

[ScreenFoo]

I don't think anyone will, and if they do it probably wouldn't be worth buying for what it would cost.

A metal halide takes high voltage AC, LED's take low voltage DC.  Don't worry though, low voltage DC power supplies are a LOT cheaper.

[ebscreen]

Not calling Mr. Greaves ethics into question at all, but he does or did work for Lawsom, one of the mfgs of these units.
I'd love to hear it from the horses mouth, and for me that would be an independent emulsion manufacturer. We have enough
variables to control without introducing more.

If we used Photopolymers I wouldn't consider it. But we use dual cures/diazo and are currently running two exposure units (3140 and a photosharp)
to keep any kind of reasonable throughput.

Next stop Murakami. Thanks Alex!

[ABuffington]

I'll forward this thread to Walt for the Murakami questions as he is on the road and our lighting expert.  I too want to hear from someone printing long run discharge, or short and if they have seen any stencil breakdown.

Like I mentioned once before, what is the Histogram?  I can tell you a lot about an exposure unit with a histogram.  The replies here show that it has it's place.  I would like to know though how it performs on a multi-color discharge print with wet onto wet printing on a long run. 

Al
Murakami Screen USA

[blue moon]

we've used the Vastex LED unit with discharge and had better results than with our NuArc 3140. These were mostly short and med runs (50-500 pcs) and have had good luck even without using the hardener. We did post expose on the longer runs at 30 seconds on at least one run, but it's been a while. This is with Aquasol HV.

We also ran a UV meter on it which showed a significantly higher amount of UV than our 3140 produced. Almost all of it was in sub 400nm if I remember correctly. Vastex has made some changes to their unit, and we are supposed to measure it again in Nashville before writing a report. In a nutshell, it all works as advertised! We had a tiniest amount of loss (about 1%) compared to a single source MH which makes their unit a great choice for 99.99% of the shops.
We have not tested the M&R unit with higher concentration of LEDs, but if spaced properly it should produce equivalent results.

pierre

[alan802]

The next mid/large DC run we do I'll take the screens to the Vastex here in town and burn the screens.  It might be a few weeks to a few months though.  I know M&R has tested theirs extensively but I wonder how they do in different (less than optimal) environments.  We all know how one emulsion can be bullet proof in some shops but not in others that seem to be almost identical in setup and equipment but if the LED units can somehow control those variables better and have more consistent results then along with the other benefits it makes sense to make the switch if you have an average MH unit. 

Slightly different subject:  I don't like buying a new bulb every 12-18 months but the speed of our unit and the (in my opinion) ridiculously high prices of the LED units (and MH units) it doesn't seem like it would be beneficial for us right now.  I've never understood the prices for any of the exposure units to tell you the truth.  I know they're worth what people are willing to pay for them but even our awesome Solarbeam is just a metal box, bulb, balast, shutter, 5 toggles, a gauge, and a membrane touch panel and the parts by themselves don't add up to 1/6th of the cost of buying one new. We've all seen DIY MH units that will perform on par with a Solarbeam and I doubt 99.9% of the people could tell the difference between the stencils on the DIY MH and the Solarbeam even with a loupe.  I can't do anything about it and my knowledge of the expo units out there isn't vast enough to argue but I can complain and have an opinion on it, ignorant it may be. 

[3Deep]

Out with the old in with the new...as stated some shops can and will take full advantage of the starlight, and some will just have a new toy which would be my case if I bought one.

Darryl

[TCT]

I have no real solid knowledge about LED units, I have talked with the creator/manufacturer of the Light Speed brand LED unit for probably 4-5 years now. He said his biggest hurdle was finding the proper LEDs that would hit the right spectrum.

I have always wondered why we don't hear about DIY LED units, DIY LED conversions or DIY DTS. Seems like every other thing in this industry has some sort of DIY version. I kinda figured by now we would of heard about something.

I fully believe that a good amount of times one is better off buying a commercial unit. Time saved, pitfalls avoided, not re inventing the wheel, ect. it all ads up. But like Alan, I think these LED units are way overpriced currently. They will probably stay that way for a few years till there are viable less expensive options that can produce good results. Then all the prices will fall.... Similar to back in the day a 100' roll of ink jet film was like $110, now what is it like $50?

[IntegrityShirts]

I have no real solid knowledge about LED units, I have talked with the creator/manufacturer of the Light Speed brand LED unit for probably 4-5 years now. He said his biggest hurdle was finding the proper LEDs that would hit the right spectrum.

I have always wondered why we don't hear about DIY LED units, DIY LED conversions or DIY DTS. Seems like every other thing in this industry has some sort of DIY version. I kinda figured by now we would of heard about something.

I fully believe that a good amount of times one is better off buying a commercial unit. Time saved, pitfalls avoided, not re inventing the wheel, ect. it all ads up. But like Alan, I think these LED units are way overpriced currently. They will probably stay that way for a few years till there are viable less expensive options that can produce good results. Then all the prices will fall.... Similar to back in the day a 100' roll of ink jet film was like $110, now what is it like $50?

DIY version of this style led is coming. Just working out the final details on led choice.

[Rockers]

we've used the Vastex LED unit with discharge and had better results than with our NuArc 3140. These were mostly short and med runs (50-500 pcs) and have had good luck even without using the hardener. We did post expose on the longer runs at 30 seconds on at least one run, but it's been a while. This is with Aquasol HV.

We also ran a UV meter on it which showed a significantly higher amount of UV than our 3140 produced. Almost all of it was in sub 400nm if I remember correctly. Vastex has made some changes to their unit, and we are supposed to measure it again in Nashville before writing a report. In a nutshell, it all works as advertised! We had a tiniest amount of loss (about 1%) compared to a single source MH which makes their unit a great choice for 99.99% of the shops.
We have not tested the M&R unit with higher concentration of LEDs, but if spaced properly it should produce equivalent results.

pierre

But is the Vastex unit significantly faster then your MSP3140? Same unit as we have by the way. Just asking as I want to change our exposure unit as well to LED sooner rather then later. Cost of electricity is a bitch here in Japan so if that unit is a lot faster and  as well cheaper then comparable other brands then it would work for us. Do you know what changes they have made on their units?