Anybody here got a Starlight exposure unit?

[Homer]

I LIED - -hold up, I grabbed PP screens thinking they were diazo, I grabbed from the wrong rack....totally my fault., that's why my times were so damn fast haha....we have some diazo screens drying in the racks now.

this thing truly is an amazing unit...110 S mesh was around 20 seconds, the longest time so far... seems like 8-12 seconds will be our go-to times for our every day stuff...

If I had to point out one thing to change/improve -it would be the hinge clamps. Not that they are bad  -but I can see that those hinge pins may be the first things to go, being all plastic....but I am super happy with it, worth every penny!

That's a photopolymer emulsion with diazo, right? Which brand emulsion? I'm around 24lu/seconds on a 110 white mesh with aquasol hvp (no diazo)

yes it is, CCI makes it., we have two buckets in use at all times, one sensitized, one non for standard plastisol quicky stuff. But we are going to switch to all diazo and hopefully land in the 20/30 second range. I have some 65 lpi designs lined up ready to expose but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

we are in the process of coming up with a chart for mesh count /coating method-  DC vs Plastisol and I'll post up our times once completed. next day or two

[jvanick]

Holy crap.  I just got notified that mine is ready for pickup!!!

Rich: thank you thank you thank you.

I'll post results with xenom nova tomorrow afternoon.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[244]

Rich, do you guys have a chart that shows the emulsions / coating method / screen type / burn times that you've tested so far?

We have multiple but that is proprietary. We will test for you or give you information on our test of your brand but we really have no idea how it will work in your shop. Too many variables.

[244]

Holy crap.  I just got notified that mine is ready for pickup!!!

Rich: thank you thank you thank you.

I'll post results with xenom nova tomorrow afternoon.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Happy to help!

[jvanick]

we received our Starlight 2331 today... (picked it up at the Niles warehouse... I saw a bunch of BIG presses crated up... I jokingly asked the dock guy if he'd load a challenger 3d into the back of my truck for me.. LOL)

this thing is awesome... we're upgrading from a compression FL unit (no vacuum drawdown), so I'm sure my results are much more awesome to me than some of you...

For comparison: the majority of our screens are 200 count... and we primarily use Xenon Nova emulsion with Diazo added.  On our old FL unit, exposure times for a 200 screen were around 5-6 minutes.... we always had issues with fine detail, and halftones over 45lpi were never achievable with any repeatable results.  Now we're running 200 mesh screens at 52 seconds with perfect 45lpi halftones

vacuum drawdown is around 5-10 seconds... the 2331 unit doesn't have a timer for the drawdown like the 3140,  and I haven't sat there with a stop watch, but it's very fast.

I can't say enough good things about what this unit is going to do to our prints...  as well as lower our frustration levels

if you have a FL unit, you owe it to yourself to upgrade... it is worth every penny.

[Mr Tees!!]

we received our Starlight 2331 today... (picked it up at the Niles warehouse... I saw a bunch of BIG presses crated up... I jokingly asked the dock guy if he'd load a challenger 3d into the back of my truck for me.. LOL)

this thing is awesome... we're upgrading from a compression FL unit (no vacuum drawdown), so I'm sure my results are much more awesome to me than some of you...

For comparison: the majority of our screens are 200 count... and we primarily use Xenon Nova emulsion with Diazo added.  On our old FL unit, exposure times for a 200 screen were around 5-6 minutes.... we always had issues with fine detail, and halftones over 45lpi were never achievable with any repeatable results.  Now we're running 200 mesh screens at 52 seconds with perfect 45lpi halftones

vacuum drawdown is around 5-10 seconds... the 2331 unit doesn't have a timer for the drawdown like the 3140,  and I haven't sat there with a stop watch, but it's very fast.

I can't say enough good things about what this unit is going to do to our prints...  as well as lower our frustration levels

if you have a FL unit, you owe it to yourself to upgrade... it is worth every penny.

...I don't know much about that emulsion, but we have been using CCI WR-14, and we have kinda settled on an exposure time of 35 seconds for pretty much everything. Maybe a bit long for some higher meshes, but we haven't had any problems resolving detail. Its nice for us having A) a standard exposure time, which means no hassles or underexposed screens, and B) knowing that all screens are fully exposed, should I decide at the last minute to throw on some hardener and run a discharge base or something.

[dirkdiggler]

we received our Starlight 2331 today... (picked it up at the Niles warehouse... I saw a bunch of BIG presses crated up... I jokingly asked the dock guy if he'd load a challenger 3d into the back of my truck for me.. LOL)

this thing is awesome... we're upgrading from a compression FL unit (no vacuum drawdown), so I'm sure my results are much more awesome to me than some of you...

For comparison: the majority of our screens are 200 count... and we primarily use Xenon Nova emulsion with Diazo added.  On our old FL unit, exposure times for a 200 screen were around 5-6 minutes.... we always had issues with fine detail, and halftones over 45lpi were never achievable with any repeatable results.  Now we're running 200 mesh screens at 52 seconds with perfect 45lpi halftones

vacuum drawdown is around 5-10 seconds... the 2331 unit doesn't have a timer for the drawdown like the 3140,  and I haven't sat there with a stop watch, but it's very fast.

I can't say enough good things about what this unit is going to do to our prints...  as well as lower our frustration levels

if you have a FL unit, you owe it to yourself to upgrade... it is worth every penny.

...I don't know much about that emulsion, but we have been using CCI WR-14, and we have kinda settled on an exposure time of 35 seconds for pretty much everything. Maybe a bit long for some higher meshes, but we haven't had any problems resolving detail. Its nice for us having A) a standard exposure time, which means no hassles or underexposed screens, and B) knowing that all screens are fully exposed, should I decide at the last minute to throw on some hardener and run a discharge base or something.

You are exposing wr-14 for 35 seconds on the starlight?  That's what I am looking for, if that's possible.

[jvanick]

Anybody care to comment on why it seems that you can 'overcook' the screens and still not lose detail?  Is this due to the lack of undercutting, or is it due to the extremely focused UV light frequency?

I noticed this too when playing around with our exposure times... except for the 1-5% and 90-100% halftones, there was no discernible difference once the screen got to a certain point to 2x that time.

[Mr Tees!!]

we received our Starlight 2331 today... (picked it up at the Niles warehouse... I saw a bunch of BIG presses crated up... I jokingly asked the dock guy if he'd load a challenger 3d into the back of my truck for me.. LOL)

this thing is awesome... we're upgrading from a compression FL unit (no vacuum drawdown), so I'm sure my results are much more awesome to me than some of you...

For comparison: the majority of our screens are 200 count... and we primarily use Xenon Nova emulsion with Diazo added.  On our old FL unit, exposure times for a 200 screen were around 5-6 minutes.... we always had issues with fine detail, and halftones over 45lpi were never achievable with any repeatable results.  Now we're running 200 mesh screens at 52 seconds with perfect 45lpi halftones

vacuum drawdown is around 5-10 seconds... the 2331 unit doesn't have a timer for the drawdown like the 3140,  and I haven't sat there with a stop watch, but it's very fast.

I can't say enough good things about what this unit is going to do to our prints...  as well as lower our frustration levels

if you have a FL unit, you owe it to yourself to upgrade... it is worth every penny.

...I don't know much about that emulsion, but we have been using CCI WR-14, and we have kinda settled on an exposure time of 35 seconds for pretty much everything. Maybe a bit long for some higher meshes, but we haven't had any problems resolving detail. Its nice for us having A) a standard exposure time, which means no hassles or underexposed screens, and B) knowing that all screens are fully exposed, should I decide at the last minute to throw on some hardener and run a discharge base or something.

You are exposing wr-14 for 35 seconds on the starlight?  That's what I am looking for, if that's possible.

...Yessir! Some higher meshes even seemed to be well exposed at as little as 20 seconds. So if you are one that is reeeeeally trying to maximize time, then you could probably do some testing and put together some sort of mesh-to-time scale, but for us that was completely unnecessary. We burn thru maybe 6-10 a day here, so its no a huge issue.