Ryonet FX LED Exposure Unit

[ZooCity]

305 mesh is burning 81 lpi, keep all halftones, is at 35 seconds. 230 mech is at 45 seconds and holds all halftones at 55 lpi. 180LX mesh is burning at 1:00.

Since you are beta testing this, can you provide some more hard data- coating method/eom, film or cts, what kind of dot gain linearization/curve are we talking, how many hard steps left on a Stouffer strip, etc. 

I think we need something to give us a ballpark to actually compare and qualify some of this.  "keep all halftones" really doesn't mean anything to me and I think some of the flack this unit is getting in this thread is coming from some perceiving those comments to mean that 305 is holding properly linearized 1% dots at 81 lpi.   I can't really tell what exactly is being claimed here with this FX unit. 

I know I poked some fun at the bluetooth thing early on but, I'll say it again, if these numbers are even ballpark near reality you can re-color me a very interested party.  Properly exposing a diazo added emulsion on a 180/48 at a minute would be amazing for us. 

Also, Dan is correct regarding a standard thread 305 mesh's threads and knuckles blocking much of the tonal range at 85lpi.  This is not some old guard v. new thing and need not be built up into an issue like that, it's simple mathematics.   That said, I always encourage pushing the envelope and seeing what can be done but some of the "old" rules are good ones and there for a reason. 

[blue moon]

I don't know. I think  maybe, he's addressing a post I made just this morning pertaining to 100lpi.  http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,15611.msg149777.html#msg149777
In my case tho, I was referring to using 100lpi of the I-Image for screen printing on paper for poster etc.  In addition, in his defense, he didn't actually describe what substrate he would be intending that 100lpi for.

Now, the negative is, similar to the Video touting to hold a 5% dot of an 85lpi (mesh on a 230) is out of place.
Here, this gentleman indicated using a 305 (and holding all the halftones) on an 81lpi.  A note about people indicating they are using an extreme lpi on a lower mesh. When they do this, often yes, it can be done. It can be done using an 81 lpi on a 305, but no. Not even with dual cure, can you actually print the "full" tonal range. It just don't compute. That is simply because of the math in the mesh thread size versus the math in the dot size of an 80lpi (in the lower ranges (as most of us know here). So yes, some do actually claim to expose and print 81, and even 100lpi but the lower sized (highlight dots) and the shadow dots cannot be held and get blocked by mesh thread at a specific size ratio.


This is where people get tripped up. They mention that "they are holding" the 5% in an 85lpi. Whats that mean tho?  That simply says yes, my exposure unit can EXPOSE IT ...AND IT WASHED OUT. In truth, you can hold 100 lpi and wash it out...on a 110 mesh. That doesn't mean it's going to print on a tee. That is not saying that I can expose it, hold it in the screen, AND, I can push ink thru those areas...and it's getting printed on the tee.


There are a few shops that advertise printing with 85 lpi and even 100lpi.  What they are actually doing tho, is using the mid tone ranges and stretching that out across the art. In other words, those that do actually use 85-100lpi don't actually claim to use anything less than a 15% dot or above 75% in the shadow tones in that 85 lpi. I can see the benefits (since yes, you can hold from 15% to 75% and THAT is what they are working with. These smaller dots (as compared to a 55-65) mid tone range provide great image detail on press.


So, all in all we do smell something. Maybe it's just some half truths. I'm open to be corrected. If I'm wrong, I don't mind being wrong as long as I get to understand where and how got there so I don't tell someone else the wrong information.


D

I have been doing all of the Beta Testing for the FX LED Exporsure unit. Ryonet asked me to handle the production testing before they released to the market. I have enjoyed the unit a lot. I use SP-1400 and I print 100% waterbased inks and discharge. This unit has had great results with exposure keeping detail and making a durable emulsion. 305 mesh is burning 81 lpi, keep all halftones, is at 35 seconds. 230 mech is at 45 seconds and holds all halftones at 55 lpi. 180LX mesh is burning at 1:00.

Part of the unit being app enabled is that soon you will be able to have the app on your phone and be able to control the unit from anywhere. It also will notify you when the exposure is complete if you have to walk away from the unit.



I will be performing testing soon with 450 mech at 100+ lpi which I am very confident in the unit to be able to hold all of the halftones.

I have read through a lot of the posts and I am very surprise on how many people resort to bashing a product that has only been out for a few days without even seeing it in person or working with one. I have been working with this unit for over a month now and I have no complaints on the unit at all.

81 to 100+ LPI waterbase work is impressive, I mean impossible. Why don't you post up a pic of that shirt. Keeping "all the halftones" at that LPI means one of two things. Your setting for LPI is way off or your just full of it. I really don't care to prove you wrong.  I want to make sure no one believes this and spends money on the unit only to be disappointed.

Please don't take this as bashing the unit. It looks good and I am sure it can do just as good as a MH unit. The times you said in your post make me think it is not nearly as fast as a LED unit should be. My MH can burn faster then that.

Please post a pic of that shirt in waterbase at 81 lpi.

Honestly, this post or quote I must say is very one sided. If you have been to the trade show in the past year then you would have seen the high halftone count on 305 mesh screens being printed at ISS. Virus Inks, the same inks I for 4 color process, was printing 102 lpi at ISS Long Beach and hold all of the dots and it was with a white underbase. Older printers do not accept or want to believe the break through in technology. Virus Inks 4YOU process system is standard at 81 lpi. Waterbased inks have a low viscosity than plastisol, which means that it can print through smaller dots.

Attached is a photo that was printed at 81 lpi on 305 mesh. Before you make claims about something, see if your shop can print it. Some shop have been pushing the envelope just to be different, and honestly it scares the older shops.

as an official representative of the forum, I'd like to extend you the welcome and assure you that any comments posted in reply to you are just there for sake of pursuing the truth!
We have been schooled before for not believing something is possible and we often need to see it with our own eyes. Thank you also for sharing with us the information on the testing you have done for Ryonet. It is information like that that helps us learn more and progress.

With that being said, I'd like to bring up some information you might not have. As the (what I believe) only SGIA Golden Image winner that actively participates here I can tell you from the perspective of somebody who is pushing the envelope and has been recognized as such. We have just about any measuring device that is used in our industry and have on several occasions corrected or assisted manufacturers with their product. (this is to give you a little bit of perspective about where we are coming from).

My understanding is that the physical limitation of the properly calibrated halftone with 55lpi on 305/34 mesh is 3%. This is the standard 305 rather than the thin thread version. 3% is the smallest opening where the hole is not blocked by the mesh. Anything below that can potentially open but will have interference with the mesh threads and will not show 100% of the dots. So printing something of that size can be done, but will not be clean.

As you can probably figure out by now, the issue is not in the ink, but rather in the stencil. Thinner waterbased ink might be able to get through the partially blocked opening, but even then you will see only parts of it which in turn will not be correct.

pierre

[blue moon]

How is this effected by the image being on the screen with a CTS?

they claim that the film itself can affect up to 1 whole step on the strip, and that since there's no film, the 6 is what you shoot for.

Not sure I believe them 100%, as we've been shooting for 7 on all of our screens and having excellent results with most emulsions.

put a layer of film between your scale and the screen. that will give you an accurate reading . . .

pierre

p.s. the step 7 is NOT the actual amount of light/energy needed, but it is in the ball park and by figuring out what it is supposed to be exactly, you can then use the scale to insure you have identical exposure all the time. My guess is, depending on the emulsion, correct exposure will be in the 5-10 range.
p.p.s. also, we lack the definition of what is the correct exposure? Photopolymer never fully converts and washing out the screens will realign some of the molecules which will allow for additional linking when post exposed. My understanding is that only 10-20% are linked when we call it fully exposed.

so why are they saying a 6 on the stouffer strip is where we should be for cts vs a 7... that's nearly a 30% difference in exposure time.  Seems like going for a 6 would cause underexposed screens.

think of the step scale as a thermometer. It will always give you the same temperature so you can repeat your cooking process every time. Now think of the emulsions as different kind of meat, pork, beef and lamb all have to cook to a different temperature to be done. Our emulsions similarly vary based on the chemistry and thickness. Even our light source will impact the results (think convection vs broiling ovens). . .

Richard is die hard believer in the solid step 7 and he tried to explain it to me on several occasions, but it seems to be over my head. Like some others (that also don't agree with solid 7) I believe multiple exposure times with microscope inspection are the start and then trial by fire to confirm it. Unfortunately there is no tool that measures the percentage of crosslinking, I've asked, looking to buy one, but alas none exist.

pierre

[Colin]

One more little wrinkle to think about with the Stoufer Strip step 7 idea...

Thread diameter can have an effect on how well that step 6/7/9/ - whatever - adheres to the mesh when being beat on with a pressure washer/hose/spray out implement of choice.

The thinner the thread, the easier it is to spray out/off the mesh.  This then causes you to expose longer than potentially needed.

Also, the longer you soak the screen, the more tender that "Solid Step" becomes......

[alan802]

To further clear up any questions I might have had about the stats:  Yeah, when I hear 81lpi and holding all the halftones I start thinking about the exposure calculator I have that I can't even see the halftones in the 2% and barely can see the 4% with the naked eye.  I pretty much draw the line at holding halftones that I can't see without a loupe, so my negativity is not meant to take personal, it's more of a physical limitation of my own body more than the limitations of the tools and equipment we're working with. 

I'm going to get a taste of these super high halftones in a few weeks.  I'm going to try and develop some 120lpi on a 305 with cap film.  Wish us luck. 

[Colin]

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of looking at the 85+ LPI HSA sim process prints.....

There is still Visible moire in the lower tonal areas.

Yes, they may be able to keep these awesome dots.... but they are not printing them.  Everything Dan talked about is right there on the shirt for us to see.

It gets shrugged off as "The general public wont see it."

[jvanick]

just for grins a bit back, we did a 1 screen white discharge job on a 305 with 85 lpi... it was a job for my band and I was curious as to what would happen... if it didn't work out right, we would have just re-shot the screen and went on.

everything said about the ends of the range getting lost is dead on... we lost everything below about 12%... (some of the dots ended up on the mesh, but the majority of them were not there.. and on the high end, everything above 80% was gone.  if we would have been running multiple screens for greys and brighter whites, I'm sure it wouldn't have been an issue, but on this print, it didn't look good at all.

however, what I will say is that for whatever reason, the fades of the 20-60% in the middle of the art were much smoother and didn't look halftone at all... not sure why the interaction of the halftone dots and the shirt worked that way, but it did.

so, 85lpi, with seps designed to handle it, I could see being a useful technique, especially if you ditch the expectations of 20% and below, and 80% and above, AND everything is calibrated.

[tonypep]

One could argue that we occasionally slide the slippery slope of technical masturbation here. Here is a 65 line/dot 305 mesh with a DC base from 5 ys ago. No I do not have Stouffer strips, EOM calculators and haven't touched a loop in ys but we know we can do this and it is enough.

[jvieira]

One could argue that we occasionally slide the slippery slope of technical masturbation here. Here is a 65 line/dot 305 mesh with a DC base from 5 ys ago. No I do not have Stouffer strips, EOM calculators and haven't touched a loop in ys but we know we can do this and it is enough.

Impressive job but registration is off

[tonypep]

I know its a MP 

[mimosatexas]

Why are his lips so shiny.  He is freaking me out...

[Homer]

Why are his lips so shiny.  He is freaking me out...

too much chap stick on photo shoot day...or maybe it's lip gloss 

orrr maybe he's made of wax...

[mimosatexas]

He does have a little uncanny valley thing going on...

[LMPrinting]

305 mesh is burning 81 lpi, keep all halftones, is at 35 seconds. 230 mech is at 45 seconds and holds all halftones at 55 lpi. 180LX mesh is burning at 1:00.

Since you are beta testing this, can you provide some more hard data- coating method/eom, film or cts, what kind of dot gain linearization/curve are we talking, how many hard steps left on a Stouffer strip, etc. 

I think we need something to give us a ballpark to actually compare and qualify some of this.  "keep all halftones" really doesn't mean anything to me and I think some of the flack this unit is getting in this thread is coming from some perceiving those comments to mean that 305 is holding properly linearized 1% dots at 81 lpi.   I can't really tell what exactly is being claimed here with this FX unit. 

I know I poked some fun at the bluetooth thing early on but, I'll say it again, if these numbers are even ballpark near reality you can re-color me a very interested party.  Properly exposing a diazo added emulsion on a 180/48 at a minute would be amazing for us. 

Also, Dan is correct regarding a standard thread 305 mesh's threads and knuckles blocking much of the tonal range at 85lpi.  This is not some old guard v. new thing and need not be built up into an issue like that, it's simple mathematics.   That said, I always encourage pushing the envelope and seeing what can be done but some of the "old" rules are good ones and there for a reason.

For exposure times. Currently using Diazo emulsion on a 180 mesh it would be at about 1:00. I am still fine tuning an exact time. I have been testing some photopolymer, Textile PHU, as well and a 225/40 S Mesh is at 7 seconds, and calculations put 305 mesh with photopolymer at about 2-3 seconds. Hard exact numbers for exposure times are being compiled.

We are based in Bozeman, you guys are welcome to come down and see the unit for yourself  if you want.

[ZooCity]

305 mesh is burning 81 lpi, keep all halftones, is at 35 seconds. 230 mech is at 45 seconds and holds all halftones at 55 lpi. 180LX mesh is burning at 1:00.

Since you are beta testing this, can you provide some more hard data- coating method/eom, film or cts, what kind of dot gain linearization/curve are we talking, how many hard steps left on a Stouffer strip, etc. 

I think we need something to give us a ballpark to actually compare and qualify some of this.  "keep all halftones" really doesn't mean anything to me and I think some of the flack this unit is getting in this thread is coming from some perceiving those comments to mean that 305 is holding properly linearized 1% dots at 81 lpi.   I can't really tell what exactly is being claimed here with this FX unit. 

I know I poked some fun at the bluetooth thing early on but, I'll say it again, if these numbers are even ballpark near reality you can re-color me a very interested party.  Properly exposing a diazo added emulsion on a 180/48 at a minute would be amazing for us. 

Also, Dan is correct regarding a standard thread 305 mesh's threads and knuckles blocking much of the tonal range at 85lpi.  This is not some old guard v. new thing and need not be built up into an issue like that, it's simple mathematics.   That said, I always encourage pushing the envelope and seeing what can be done but some of the "old" rules are good ones and there for a reason.

For exposure times. Currently using Diazo emulsion on a 180 mesh it would be at about 1:00. I am still fine tuning an exact time. I have been testing some photopolymer, Textile PHU, as well and a 225/40 S Mesh is at 7 seconds, and calculations put 305 mesh with photopolymer at about 2-3 seconds. Hard exact numbers for exposure times are being compiled.

We are based in Bozeman, you guys are welcome to come down and see the unit for yourself  if you want.

Thanks for the invite!  If I ever get a chance to get away I'll pm you and we can setup a time to hang.  There's not many shop's printing wb ink, let alone HSA in the area that I'm aware of at least it would be great to talk with another one.

So that 180 @ 1min with diazo, what step on the Stouffer is that holding?