Workhorse Lumitron LED Exposure Unit

[Racer Tees]

Saw the new Workhorse LED unit pop up in my Facebook news feed.  The price point is incredible.  Curious how it will stack up against other units in terms of exposure time and exposure quality?

Anyone laid their hands on one?

[IntegrityShirts]

Anxiously awaiting a review. It's about time prices dropped on LED units. It was only a matter of time.

[Racer Tees]

I've been looking at upgrading for a while.  Burning 6 color jobs with 1000w halogen is just getting old.  The price point on the Workhorse may persuade me to get a new unit versus a used Richmond or something similar.

[TCT]

We just plugged ours in today. We still have to run some jobs on screens from it(watch for breakdown) for a few days before I can really decide.
What were numbers people were having for times for diazos like SP-1400 on a Starlight or Vastex? Thought they were in the 1min range. Also a wired question, and hope it is not a sign off what is to come from the unit, but do exposure calculators(one I used was Chromoline) work with LED units? I have to imagine they do, but we got the same reading on ours if we did 1min or 4min which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Coated up some fresh new screens with Murakami HVP, Murakami SP-1400 and Saati PHU. Hopefully we will have time to really test some out tomorrow!

[Onewithpez]

Can anyone share the price?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[IntegrityShirts]

Looks like about $2500

[alan802]

We've been running LED for a few months now and I'd have to say that the expo calculator is somewhat useful but not as useful as it is with a metal halide unit.  Things will look fantastic on the calc and then 50 shirts into a run the screen will break down.  LED is different and I feel like it's not near an MH unit in fully cooking a stencil.  At least our unit isn't.  I'd say it might be equivalent to 1000W MH.  I've been told our Richmond with a 10K bulb only outputs around 5K or less in reality so if that's true, and with our issues with LED so far I'd say it's roughly equivalent to 1000W. 

We were shooting screens at 10 seconds and under and the calc was looking good, and now we've quadrupled our times from our lowest point and we still have screen breakdown.  I wonder how much more UV the other units are putting out but I would bet that most LED units are a notch below a good MH unit at this stage.

[jonbravado]

We've been running the Lawson LED5000 for over a year now with great results.  Price point was great.   They claim it to be as powerful as a 5,000 metal halide.  We use photo-polymer emulsion on most all stuff plastisol with quick times and great detail.    I think we're around 20-30 seconds on most stuff.  I'll get some more details from our screen guys.  Workhorse makes great stuff, so I'm sure it's a good unit.  I bought the Lawson because it was one of the only ones available at the time - nuarc and vastex didn't have theirs ready for market.  We've been very happy with it.  I wouldn't hesitate to buy the same unit again if i needed one.

[TCT]

Looks like about $2500

With a show special we got ours crated and shipped from AZ to MN for a wink over $2K.

[screenprintguy]

Ive yet to hear anyone truely happy with dual cure/diazo emulsion running discharge yet though. Pure Photo obviously is awesome, but I'm waiting to hear someone with some "real" production rates in the other realm. I was told by a Ulano/Kiwo rep that was here last week that they are coming out with a new Kiwo emulsion that will a right out of the bucket, very fast exposing good for EVERYTHING EMULSION geared toward CTS and LED systems. I guess we will see. I'd hate to switch over and hit problems that I'm hearing people say they have. Most of which is discussed, OFF the public eye, which kinda sucks for someone not included in conversations, but I've burned enough dough trying out methods that, at least for us didn't work. I'd love to have an LED system that could cook the crap out of some dualcure/diazo emulsions fast and stand up like steel on press for water based.

[Homer]

Ive yet to hear anyone truely happy with dual cure/diazo emulsion running discharge yet though.

we use HXT with diazo on our starlight, just ran 1k pieces DC, not a single issue. Exposure time was roughly a minute and change...the way I see it, once the emulsion is hardened - it's hardened, doesn't matter if you use a MH, black lights, LED or a flash light. I think the difference is the over all time it takes to properly hardened the emulsion. but wtf do i know.

I think when you start to hear of screen failure, it's not so much the emulsion but the other parameters like squeeqie selection and pressure that cause the emulsion to fail and are often over looked.

[3Deep]

Ive yet to hear anyone truely happy with dual cure/diazo emulsion running discharge yet though.

we use HXT with diazo on our starlight, just ran 1k pieces DC, not a single issue. Exposure time was roughly a minute and change...the way I see it, once the emulsion is hardened - it's hardened, doesn't matter if you use a MH, black lights, LED or a flash light. I think the difference is the over all time it takes to properly hardened the emulsion. but wtf do i know.

I think when you start to hear of screen failure, it's not so much the emulsion but the other parameters like squeeqie selection and pressure that cause the emulsion to fail and are often over looked.

right there with ya Homer, even though I did like the hell out that starlight demo!!!

[screenprintguy]

Ive yet to hear anyone truely happy with dual cure/diazo emulsion running discharge yet though.

we use HXT with diazo on our starlight, just ran 1k pieces DC, not a single issue. Exposure time was roughly a minute and change...the way I see it, once the emulsion is hardened - it's hardened, doesn't matter if you use a MH, black lights, LED or a flash light. I think the difference is the over all time it takes to properly hardened the emulsion. but wtf do i know.

I think when you start to hear of screen failure, it's not so much the emulsion but the other parameters like squeeqie selection and pressure that cause the emulsion to fail and are often over looked.

THanks for that REAL world feed back Homer!!!!! Since HXT is my go to for WB prints that's great news!!! Have you tried to expose your hxt at shorter times for use with plastisol? I know with my Trilight, if I do 20-30% of the time the screens are great with plastisol, just need that long cook for WB. I know someone else that we testing hxt with his starlight and wasn't liking the outcome, maybe he should follow your recipe. We all hate when screens breakdown mid run, suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuux especially when you can't see it till it's on the other end of the dryer 30 to 50 shirts later.

[Homer]

before we added diazo to HXT, we could get a screen done in seconds, literally. BUT...speed wasn't a deciding factor in our LED purchase. the idea was to control a variable.

the key with HXT is time and add diazo. stuff is insane with detail, even better with the diazo.

[ZooCity]

We don't use expo calcs here- Stouffer greyscale strip and then film with our halftones, fine lines, stochastic, some type a various pt., etc.   The Stouffer strip will tell you more of what you need to know in terms of how 'complete' the exposure was.  It's not all of the story but a good chapter of it.   I like Alan's (murakami) rule that an imaged screened is not a properly exposed one. 

Our Starlight finally is getting repaired and we should be digging into tests this month at some point.  We're fine tuning the halide in the meantime w. a new super wide reflector and, after the LED expos are calibrated will run screens from both in the same job to see how the LED expo compares to the halide on long runs.  I also grabbed a usb microscope to hopefully document some differences in detail.  Time willing, I'll try to make a big post on it or even a short article.   The only real difference between the two setups might be the glass used on either but it should be more or less apples to apples.   The whole process should take at least a month I'm expecting before we let go of one or the other.   

When it comes down to brass tacks the LED just needs to shoot about as quick as the halide, similar detail and durability and it wins due to it's low power consumption and lack of consumables (we use Olec oem bulbs and they ain't cheap).  I'm still scratching my head as to how the hell the LED will keep expos in calibration without a photocell/integrator though.