Before You Went LED, What Were You Using?

[ebscreen]

Just saw on Chromaline's website they have a "UV LED compatible emulsion".....

[GraphicDisorder]

Just saw on Chromaline's website they have a "UV LED compatible emulsion".....

Diazo?  Ill have to look at that.

Any particular flavor of Chromaline?

DZ 307 Blue 

[ebscreen]

Nope, photopolymer, but the first mention of a LED specific emulsion I've seen yet.

[GraphicDisorder]

Nope, photopolymer, but the first mention of a LED specific emulsion I've seen yet.

I was gonna say that seems like a first, not seen any anyway. 

[alan802]

Not to pile on but we just had a real-world failure on a sim process job that I was talking about earlier.  The red wasn't quite right, so we took our bright red out, against my better judgement I tried cleaning the screen so there would be no contamination (in hindsight there wasn't much chance of noticeable contamination) and it was more habit than trying to stop it from happening, and the halftone area of the stencil locked up about 70%.  The open area of the axe blade (fire fighter design) cleaned just fine, but the fire/flame area was 55lpi halftones and they locked up and we had to break it down and shoot another red screen.  So this little issue we're discussing has cost us about 30 minutes today.  Luckily we're ahead of schedule and we're not rushing to get things done, but this is a great example of how things in pre-press affect things on press.  I could have exposed the screen for 60 seconds and not gotten a lot of the halftones out, or run the risk of underexposure coming back to bite us down the road.  I would have post exposed with the sun but it's raining here and I am not in the habit of post exposing screens and I sure hope it doesn't come to that.

[GraphicDisorder]

What made you pick the unit you picked?  Sounds like it's not working for you at all really.

[Homer]

What made you pick the unit you picked?  Sounds like it's not working for you at all really.

that's what I was thinking, why that unit? Get an M&R in there to compare, perfect time for Rich to put a demo unit in your shop to compare and prove a point. We use HXT with Diazo for added detail and we have zero complaints...... Hell, look at Danny's prints with the STE II or whatever it is, you're telling me LED is bunk? I don't believe all units are the same for a second...

[Frog]

Not to pile on but we just had a real-world failure on a sim process job that I was talking about earlier.  The red wasn't quite right, so we took our bright red out, against my better judgement I tried cleaning the screen so there would be no contamination (in hindsight there wasn't much chance of noticeable contamination) and it was more habit than trying to stop it from happening, and the halftone area of the stencil locked up about 70%. The open area of the axe blade (fire fighter design) cleaned just fine, but the fire/flame area was 55lpi halftones and they locked up and we had to break it down and shoot another red screen.  So this little issue we're discussing has cost us about 30 minutes today.  Luckily we're ahead of schedule and we're not rushing to get things done, but this is a great example of how things in pre-press affect things on press.  I could have exposed the screen for 60 seconds and not gotten a lot of the halftones out, or run the risk of underexposure coming back to bite us down the road.  I would have post exposed with the sun but it's raining here and I am not in the habit of post exposing screens and I sure hope it doesn't come to that.

What did you use as a cleaner?

[Dottonedan]

at Allan, you mentioned cutting back on exposure time by 50% to hold the dots below 5%. Is that correct?
That sounds very odd to me. Don't know anyone that must do that to a hive small dots on LED. No matter the brand from what I've heard. Not that I know a lot of the others.


I've seen people cost 2/2 round and still hold the small dots. ( not that I would choose to do that).

I see a lot of "different" coating techniques. One was even a 1 coat. Period. Only one side (shirt side) was coated....with an auto coater (on all screens) ranging from 110-305. Again I say tho, who am I to question them. This was a mega shop with 21 autos. Been in business for years.

The image quality compared to MH is for what?  What more image quality are we looking for than an award winner using LED? That seems to imply one might achieve better than the LED award winners using MH. How much more image quality do we need to define? I'm open to see it. I just haven't seen print results any better or worse with MH over LED by comparable shops.


Gotta run.


(edited for my phone post spelling and word replacement).

[ebscreen]

Different shops demand different things from their screens. Different shops also have differing opinions of a quality stencil.
Sim-process plastisol is not the most demanding application we run into, pretty low on the list actually.
It just reminds me of the early dot com craze when everyone was ordering groceries online. Scaled that back pretty quick.

[alan802]

What made you pick the unit you picked?  Sounds like it's not working for you at all really.

I bought into the hype I guess.  I was in a bind, crazy busy, the Solarbeam's membrane panel buttons stopped working one day, I knew my supplier had a good unit for sale and we pulled the trigger.  I guess I could have waited a few days, but I thought the Vastex was going to kick butt and I hate that my posts make it sound like a piece of junk, it's not as bad as it sounds.  But when you come from one of the best expo units ever made, it sure sounds like I want to throw it away.  I don't think the Vastex is the best unit, but I don't think it's the worst.  And if it weren't for the vacuum time I'd probably be very happy and just work through the other problem of not cooking the stencil thoroughly enough.  I'm thinking the M&R doesn't have the same issues because it has about 4 times the amount of diodes as our Vastex, and perhaps they're a better, more complete UV emitter and therefore no Starlight users are having underexposure issues. These really are more 1st world problems, that's why I'm simply trying to give the bad along with the 99% of reviews that are nothing but the good.  Most of the CTS talk is that way as well, you hear nothing but the greatness in public, but you get behind the scenes and there are plenty of issues.  They're not deal-breaking issues, it's just in stark contrast to what you read on this forum is why it's somewhat jarring to hear about. 

at Allan, you mentioned cutting back on exposure time by 50% to hold the dots below 5%. Is that correct?
That sounds very odd to me. Don't know anyone that must do that to a hive small dots on LED. No matter the brand from what ive heard. Not that I know a lot of the others.

You've heard of that technique before haven't you, just not with the LED's I guess?  I thought it was VERY common to underexpose to get some of the finer details.  The density isn't there with those 5% dots and since our old artist left we've struggled a little with our film density.  It's not terrible, but it's not as good as it was a year ago.  Sim process screens have always been a breeze, and if you have a strong light source, they should always be.

[GraphicDisorder]

What made you pick the unit you picked?  Sounds like it's not working for you at all really.

I bought into the hype I guess.  I was in a bind, crazy busy, the Solarbeam's membrane panel buttons stopped working one day, I knew my supplier had a good unit for sale and we pulled the trigger.  I guess I could have waited a few days, but I thought the Vastex was going to kick butt and I hate that my posts make it sound like a piece of junk, it's not as bad as it sounds.  But when you come from one of the best expo units ever made, it sure sounds like I want to throw it away.  I don't think the Vastex is the best unit, but I don't think it's the worst.  And if it weren't for the vacuum time I'd probably be very happy and just work through the other problem of not cooking the stencil thoroughly enough.  I'm thinking the M&R doesn't have the same issues because it has about 4 times the amount of diodes as our Vastex, and perhaps they're a better, more complete UV emitter and therefore no Starlight users are having underexposure issues. These really are more 1st world problems, that's why I'm simply trying to give the bad along with the 99% of reviews that are nothing but the good.  Most of the CTS talk is that way as well, you hear nothing but the greatness in public, but you get behind the scenes and there are plenty of issues.  They're not deal-breaking issues, it's just in stark contrast to what you read on this forum is why it's somewhat jarring to hear about. 

I think a lot of what you hear in relation to CTS is no different than what you did in your LED unit. When you got your Vastex it was all good it seemed.  Time marches on and things you thought would be flukes or whatever end up being bigger deals.  That's how it was with me with our original CTS.  It was Epson based, and that's really all I have to say about it.  If your running a EPSON without any issues your the man as our 4880 while a great printer had hiccups pretty often and they were similar to the issues where were seeing in the original CTS we purchased.  Even still the unit worked fine otherwise.  Final straw with us with Cartridge issues, which were Epson issues and the chip reset would no longer reset a Cartridge.  ST has nothing like that so that alone was a huge bonus. 

Our current ST, I have not a single complaint about it to this point, the only thing I even had issue with on the new one is learning/adjusting to the difference in curves going from Epson/accurip to ST. There were differences but we got it now.

[alan802]

The earliest discussions I had with some knowledgeable industry guys all told me the same thing about CTS, "hold on a little while longer, it's almost right" which was right in line with what I saw and what I'm seeing now, and Brandt's experience plays that out right on the money.  I think it's right, the little nagging issues that I have always hated dealing with are likely behind the major CTS players and LED seems to be playing the same way.  I do think it's a much shorter curve to get LED right versus the CTS machines, but I still think the first few years are spent fine-tuning them, which is no different than any equipment in any industry.  In our case it was just the luck of having ours go down, in my mind thinking I didn't have time to wait a week or so for a new unit, and the convenience of my favorite supplier, whom I trust completely, having one in stock, it was a win-win for everyone involved.  Despite my complaints, it's still a better option than most exposure units out there, I just need to get used to a few things and bite the bullet and buy the upgraded vacuum system from Vastex, get our D-max back to optimum levels so I can burn 55lpi halftones on a 280 for the right time to fully expose the entire stencil.  But I will still complain that right now I have 3 280 mesh screens that the emulsion is locked up in and it's going to take about an hour to get those screens back.  I'm seriously considering buying 3 new shurloc panels and use the old "razor blade reclaim" technique.   

[244]

The thing that you guys aren't used to is Alan being brutally honest!  Other sugar coat the negatives of their purchases to save face, stay in good graces with manufacture, whatever.  Alan doesn't do that, he doesn't hold pinches, he tells it like it is.

Might be why no one is beating the door down to get demo products in his shop.

Just because someone has no issues to report early (maybe because there weren't any to report), doesn't mean when there are some later that they must have been sugar coating or saving face with initial reports, that's frankly a reach at best. It's interesting that the same perception could be applied to even Alan at this point. After all early it was all fine basically, but now there is more. Was he withholding it? Doubt that seriously, he just didn't rush to the internet to chat about it. I guess the difference here is I didn't perceive Alan as trying to save face as if there was some screen printing cover up or something. He's just had more time with it and its not working out completely how he hoped. His experience changed. Speaking for myself, that sounds a lot like my i-Image experience interestingly.

I cannot speak for other manufacturers but we always offer a trial period if requested and all of our product comes with a money back guarantee. I don't think it's a fair statement that manufacturers are not rushing to Alan because they are afraid of brutal honesty. Ask and you shall receive! 

[GraphicDisorder]