Before You Went LED, What Were You Using?

[dirkdiggler]

Mike, we have a chart next to the unit that tells us times for selected screen / coating method and we go off that. We also add diazo but we do expose plastisol screens a bit shorter. We had 2 different emulsions and all that mess but we have nothing but HXT now. If I had a MH unit, I think I would pass on this emulsion but with our set up, we are happy...now I just need cts and watch the detail come to life.

Thanks for the feed back bro. I'm still using both Chroma blue and HXT and getting tired of having both on hand. I love HXT, If I could expose it faster that would really help to go with it exclusively. That stuff holds such awesome detail and is rock solid, and really good price as well. I've been looking at the Starlight, and the CCI unit, the one CCI has now is kinda big, can do up to 4 23x31 screens at 1 time, stands vertically which is reaaaaaally nice, but I was just told by my rep that they are launching 2 new units that are smaller, can shoot 2 23x31 or 2 25x36 at once, and will have more of the multispectrum led lights than anything on the market today. What is attracting me to that one is the vertical mounting of it, takes up no space at all, and they are developing it around the use of diazo and dual cure emulsions that they make. We will see, we are in the middle of lots of big decisions right now and it gets freakin overwhelming and stressful to say the least. One thing HXT does stink bad when exposing, really noticeable now that I am in a dedicated imaging room. I'm putting a couple of duct hoses on the blowers of my Trilight to send that stank outside, but if we go LED, that wont be an option and will probably have to put an exhaust fan in for use during exposures. In the confined space it gets overwhelmingly stanky , lol. Sorry for the topic derail.

Hey Mike, get your rep to get you a sample of DC Plus, we are FINISHED with HXT and on to DC Plus, its a dual cure and green and we are really digging it.  I havent tried discharge with it yet, but a big shop up from us uses it on everything and they do tons of WB and Discharge.  Also, I was told that CCI did a scientific study and proved that green emulsions hold better detail than any other color.....

[screenprintguy]

Mike, we have a chart next to the unit that tells us times for selected screen / coating method and we go off that. We also add diazo but we do expose plastisol screens a bit shorter. We had 2 different emulsions and all that mess but we have nothing but HXT now. If I had a MH unit, I think I would pass on this emulsion but with our set up, we are happy...now I just need cts and watch the detail come to life.

Thanks for the feed back bro. I'm still using both Chroma blue and HXT and getting tired of having both on hand. I love HXT, If I could expose it faster that would really help to go with it exclusively. That stuff holds such awesome detail and is rock solid, and really good price as well. I've been looking at the Starlight, and the CCI unit, the one CCI has now is kinda big, can do up to 4 23x31 screens at 1 time, stands vertically which is reaaaaaally nice, but I was just told by my rep that they are launching 2 new units that are smaller, can shoot 2 23x31 or 2 25x36 at once, and will have more of the multispectrum led lights than anything on the market today. What is attracting me to that one is the vertical mounting of it, takes up no space at all, and they are developing it around the use of diazo and dual cure emulsions that they make. We will see, we are in the middle of lots of big decisions right now and it gets freakin overwhelming and stressful to say the least. One thing HXT does stink bad when exposing, really noticeable now that I am in a dedicated imaging room. I'm putting a couple of duct hoses on the blowers of my Trilight to send that stank outside, but if we go LED, that wont be an option and will probably have to put an exhaust fan in for use during exposures. In the confined space it gets overwhelmingly stanky , lol. Sorry for the topic derail.

Hey Mike, get your rep to get you a sample of DC Plus, we are FINISHED with HXT and on to DC Plus, its a dual cure and green and we are really digging it.  I havent tried discharge with it yet, but a big shop up from us uses it on everything and they do tons of WB and Discharge.  Also, I was told that CCI did a scientific study and proved that green emulsions hold better detail than any other color.....

Emailing him right now!!! Thanks buddy! I was going to try out some Ulano Orange too, but may not waste time or a vendor's sample gallon

[alan802]

I wish I could have done what Zoo is going to do.  Our Richmond is out of commission but it only needs a new control panel to work but it needed new glass, new bulb, new blanket, and a few other things and we needed something ASAP due to our schedule being beyond full so we had to pull the trigger on an LED quicker than I would have liked to.  I understand that the two major issues I have with our Vastex have been upgraded but that doesn't do me any damn good at this point.

Looks like the average would be a 1000-1200 metal halide unit.  A few Richmond Solarbeam users as well.  Anybody else want to add anything?

[ScreenFoo]

A month?  Don't rush yourself now.

Only reason I mention it is the idea that if you could cut that distance by 30%, as you well know, that will be a much larger than 30% increase in light energy delivered to the stencil.
Unfortunately, I am not the wizard of Olec reflectors you are looking for.  (I think his last name is "Diehl"? )

[Northland]

Old set-up:
1200W MH
Dual-cure emulsion
4 minutes exposure
5 minute warm-up before first screen

New set-up:
200W LED (1800 diode 5050-SMD retrofit)
pure photo emulsion
25 second exposure
no warm-up time

Not sure if I lost some detail with the emulsion switch, but for now I'm sticking with LED
Getting away from the lamp warm-up time was attractive to me.

[Maxie]

New set-up:
200W LED (1800 diode 5050-SMD retrofit)

Where did you get this.    Can you give more details?

[Northland]

New set-up:
200W LED (1800 diode 5050-SMD retrofit)

Where did you get this.    Can you give more details?

It's a DIY... PM sent

[LuckyFlyinROUSH]

A fricken Workhorse Halogen exposure unit...uggg...


If anyone wants to come test stuff out on our Starlight you are more than welcome. We are in KC, MO.

Also...

Has anyone built a stand to place the Starlight vertically?

[244]

A fricken Workhorse Halogen exposure unit...uggg...


If anyone wants to come test stuff out on our Starlight you are more than welcome. We are in KC, MO.

Also...

Has anyone built a stand to place the Starlight vertically?

Let me know what you need.

[sben763]

Old set-up:
1200W MH
Dual-cure emulsion
4 minutes exposure
5 minute warm-up before first screen

New set-up:
200W LED (1800 diode 5050-SMD retrofit)
pure photo emulsion
25 second exposure
no warm-up time

Not sure if I lost some detail with the emulsion switch, but for now I'm sticking with LED
Getting away from the lamp warm-up time was attractive to me.

Modified due to a manufacture contact, they are wanting to come test the unit.

[Integriteez]

Ask yourself this first. What emulsion in the last 20 years has been developed with LED in mind? Who is selling the LED units? How much research have they really put into this.
It's always the new things that should make our job easier,faster and better that we look for. We used a LED for 3 months and thought we had solved the worlds problems BUT we were wrong. We changed back to MH and our trouble went away after 1 day. When we first placed our LED in service we did all the normal exposure test with excellent results a hard 6 and a soft 7. We were thrilled!!! After a few days we noticed our ink was not clearing in one stroke. Without thinking we blamed it on everything else. We sharpened our Squeegees. We tried different inks and adjusted our pressures and stroke speeds. we checked our screens with a 30 power loop and they all looked great. So we continued to chase our tails for another month until one of our bulb banks went out. The LED unit was giving us such good halftones we even had to choke back some of our art to keep PrePrints looking the same.
All that being said we switched back to MH because of our LED failure and to get it fixed and in one day all of our problems were gone.
EOM is the enemy of led we measured ours before and after exposure and found that we were losing 20 to 35 precent on developing (Rinsing Out) we cannot get it to cross link the 2 sides. I use pure photopolymer and have blazing fast exposure times 15 to 20 seconds. We have a CTS wax jet and do about 60 to 90 screens a day. Our ink side was not the same using LED and we lost most of our ink well not knowing. Im not saying this will happen to everyone but it happened to us and we are glad we switched back. Ask someone in the exposure business who has tested the LED what there thoughts are before making the switch. I wont go back until Emulsion come with a label on it that says LED TESTED and APPROVED!!!!!  Don't be fooled by equipment salesmen.     

[ebscreen]

Yep, metal halide here until emulsion manufacturers catch up.

[244]

Ask yourself this first. What emulsion in the last 20 years has been developed with LED in mind? Who is selling the LED units? How much research have they really put into this.
It's always the new things that should make our job easier,faster and better that we look for. We used a LED for 3 months and thought we had solved the worlds problems BUT we were wrong. We changed back to MH and our trouble went away after 1 day. When we first placed our LED in service we did all the normal exposure test with excellent results a hard 6 and a soft 7. We were thrilled!!! After a few days we noticed our ink was not clearing in one stroke. Without thinking we blamed it on everything else. We sharpened our Squeegees. We tried different inks and adjusted our pressures and stroke speeds. we checked our screens with a 30 power loop and they all looked great. So we continued to chase our tails for another month until one of our bulb banks went out. The LED unit was giving us such good halftones we even had to choke back some of our art to keep PrePrints looking the same.
All that being said we switched back to MH because of our LED failure and to get it fixed and in one day all of our problems were gone.
EOM is the enemy of led we measured ours before and after exposure and found that we were losing 20 to 35 precent on developing (Rinsing Out) we cannot get it to cross link the 2 sides. I use pure photopolymer and have blazing fast exposure times 15 to 20 seconds. We have a CTS wax jet and do about 60 to 90 screens a day. Our ink side was not the same using LED and we lost most of our ink well not knowing. Im not saying this will happen to everyone but it happened to us and we are glad we switched back. Ask someone in the exposure business who has tested the LED what there thoughts are before making the switch. I wont go back until Emulsion come with a label on it that says LED TESTED and APPROVED!!!!!  Don't be fooled by equipment salesmen.     

not all LED units are the same. Here at M&R a tremendous amount of testing has been done not only by U.S. But emulsion suppliers as well. We have not experienced what you describe. I would not write off all LED units based on your experience.

[Steve Harpold]

I agree with the frustration in the LED units. As all LEDs are not created the same way.  I am up for the challenge at the Indy NBM show, let's see what they can do on Diazo emulsions.

www.brownmfg.net

[Frog]

Sounds like we need to add some healthy EOM coatings or even thick Cap film into the test mix.

Most shops will not want to have two different units, but maybe that would be ideal.