StarLight

[3Deep]

Ron Hopkins just left the shop, we spent the morning going over the starlight and exposing some screens, and I was blow the hell away with the unit.  I can't say enough about how good the unit preformed just a little detail we burn a 305 yellow mesh with a 55 line halftone and it washed out like a dream under a soft flow of water not a hard wash with a pressure washer, just a garden hose sprayer, then we did a 8 to 10 year old film from Scott Fresner that has a 55 lpi calling for a 305 mesh, so I tossed it on a 160 white mesh and Sh!$t it burned every halftone.  Yeah I still like my Anatol folks but I a big ole fan now of the Starlight and when I get a few sec I'll post some printed T-shirt pics from the screens we burn...Thanks Ron nice meeting ya.

darryl

[bimmridder]

Ron's a good guy. Knows his stuff, and sells good equipment

[GraphicDisorder]

Love our starlight!

[Dottonedan]

Good you hear that you're advancing further. One other thing about having Ron there, the exposure times will be dead on for sure. If something isn't ever holding, it's because of some other output issue like the film printer device or the actual art file itself.


I hate to see people buy new equipment and something like an exposure time or something hasn't been honed in on to it's optimum potential. Some of my install customers are like. (yea man, that is holding good) and I'm like, yea it is, it's what you've been doing, (but) we can use this additional step and get it even better.  Some shops that were holding 10% as their minimum can now hold 3%. I've seen down to 2% and even 1% being held on the screens now, but the curve is actually beefed up in that area slightly and they are really holding about a 3%.  Still tho, NOW, when doing a soft fade to the shirt, they don't get that saw toothed or hard drop off at the small dots.  I don't know for sure, but I kinda think (base don what I've seen so far) that the LED lights are a tad more accurate or easier to get precise times (precise exposures) with than the more traditional light options.

[ebscreen]

I would kill to see a close up (loupe) photo of the same film burned with a MH and a LED unit.
Then same thing with CTS and film. Of course having exposure dialed in for both units would
be necessary though.

[3Deep]

Oh I forgot all burn times were at 9 seconds

[dirkdiggler]

Starlight is the mutts nutts!  No doubt about it!

[kingscreen]

We love our Starlight.   

[Prosperi-Tees]

Hey D, Anatol has one too. Bigger size now for the same price as what the smaller one was and stand is included. The unit will accept up to 25x36 frames, I know that wouldn't matter to you with your press though. Just thought you may want to be color consistent lol.

[alan802]

I would kill to see a close up (loupe) photo of the same film burned with a MH and a LED unit.
Then same thing with CTS and film. Of course having exposure dialed in for both units would
be necessary though.

I might could pull this off if we slow down a little bit.  I can take some stuff to Kevin's at River City if he's got a working demo of the Vastex unit and maybe he'll let me run some tests.  I can't promise anything but if at all possible I will do it, with Kevin's consent of course.  Doesn't a few of the starlight owners have their old MH units that they could test or is most everyone coming from a much lower powered light source to the LED?

[ebscreen]

I would kill to see a close up (loupe) photo of the same film burned with a MH and a LED unit.
Then same thing with CTS and film. Of course having exposure dialed in for both units would
be necessary though.

I might could pull this off if we slow down a little bit.  I can take some stuff to Kevin's at River City if he's got a working demo of the Vastex unit and maybe he'll let me run some tests.  I can't promise anything but if at all possible I will do it, with Kevin's consent of course.  Doesn't a few of the starlight owners have their old MH units that they could test or is most everyone coming from a much lower powered light source to the LED?

Again, I'd kill to see this. So just name the person....

We run two metal halide units to keep up with diazo/demand. So as long as quality is the same or better it's a no brainer,
but I've yet to see the visual proof there unfortunately. I understand that exposing screens hundreds of times faster is
going to be exciting no matter what, but excitement without attention to the proofs doesn't sell me. Too many variables
involved in our process to add more for the sake of speed.

[GraphicDisorder]

We have both MH (Ameragraph) and a Starlight, I don't know when id have time or the spare screens to waste but if I see that opportunity present itself I will do it. However id never suggest our exposure is dialed exactly in so maybe seek someone that has a little more time to focus on perfect test.

Didn't someone do a test like this on this board already?  Ive slept since then but seems like it was done.

[cleveprint]

i freaking love this machine. we've had ours for about 3 weeks or so. we do not do a ton of detailed stuff, but did burn a few 305s with 55lpi and they came out beautiful. screens held up, no breakdowns and i feel we got all the detail.

for us the biggest thing was speed. our old 401-K was slow. very slow. what used to be 2 hours of work a day exposing and washing out is now 30 min. we have been very busy and taking some time off one part of the operation has been priceless.

btw, we used aquasol hvp. white meshes are about 8 seconds and yellow are about 6. seems to be dialed in for us pretty good now.

[alan802]

I will say that when I tested the Vastex unit months back under the loupe there wasn't much difference between the MH and LED screens.  I think there was a little less edge definition on the LED stencils but it was so close that I'm not sure it would show up on a printed shirt.  But I didn't focus too much on the comparables between the two except for burn times and a quick look at the stencil quality.  This time I'll pay much more attention to the overall quality...assuming I can find the time to do this.

[Sbrem]

I do love these current conversations on the lights. Eb, 2 metal halides at the same time? or 2 exposure units, meaning vacuum frames too? You would save quite a bit from what I understand on power alone, I know our 5K Violux draws a fair amount of amperage... my partner and I are seriously considering a new light, and keep the old one and wall frame for emergencies...

Steve