"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
This is a huge reason why I was asking before about UV light wavelengths and emulsion sensitivity.We as the consumers, are VERY much in the dark about the true science behind why things are working/not working.the emulsion manufacturers won't tell usthe equipment manufacturers are very tight lipped too...until we get both pieces answered, and not just "call us and we'll tell you if you ask" and put in a chart somewhere, we can't make educated decisions.Heck, even if the emulsion manufacturers gave us a chart that said "this emulsion works best with this LED unit", that might be a good start... but honestly, I'd like to make that decision.First emulsion manufacturer that starts that kind of testing and information, along with the typical viscosity, solids %, etc, will likely get our business... I HATE secrets like this that cause US to have to do so much testing/experimenting/etc...
Quote from: jvanick on May 09, 2015, 09:35:52 AMThis is a huge reason why I was asking before about UV light wavelengths and emulsion sensitivity.We as the consumers, are VERY much in the dark about the true science behind why things are working/not working.the emulsion manufacturers won't tell usthe equipment manufacturers are very tight lipped too...until we get both pieces answered, and not just "call us and we'll tell you if you ask" and put in a chart somewhere, we can't make educated decisions.Heck, even if the emulsion manufacturers gave us a chart that said "this emulsion works best with this LED unit", that might be a good start... but honestly, I'd like to make that decision.First emulsion manufacturer that starts that kind of testing and information, along with the typical viscosity, solids %, etc, will likely get our business... I HATE secrets like this that cause US to have to do so much testing/experimenting/etc...Here is where the problem lies. Manufacturers like M&R who do the research and then freely give the information either on forums or even to end users end up being the research and development people for all the other manufacturers for free. Then our product is more costly due to the research cost the others don't have. As most people look at cost first that put you at a disadvantage immediately. The Starlight is a perfect example. We have more cost in our LED bank than some have as a retail price for their retail unit. Our vacuum is quiet and pulls down in 15 seconds. Guess what? That has a cost. We won't reveal why ours works better so we rely on end users to tell others. I also encourage end users to tell good or bad .If there is no bad and people think that is being withheld that ends up being their loss. We do a tremendous amount of testing,so much I can't even imagine the amount of screen meshes, emulsions, coats, and squeegee strokes with various inks. We even hired Lon Winters as an outside consultant for two solid weeks to coat screens, image, and test. I seriously doubt any other manufacturer has done these type of test to this degree. Can't give that away for free to the competition and that is why it's not all posted.
How about EOM measurements pre/post exposure with MH/LED as discussed earlier in the thread? Or magnified photographs even? I don't think eitherwould give anything away to your competition other than bragging rights.
not so sure that EOM is a good indicator of poor exposure or not.
There have been a lot of posts pertaining to LED and how much everyone loves theirs and I was wondering what the perspective is since one's opinions on them is mainly shaped by what they were using before. I'll start, we were using a Richmond Solarbeam with a "10K" bulb and I put that in "" due to the fact that I've had a few guys tell me it's not close to actually being a 10K and more like a 6-7K output. I've said many times that I thought this expo unit was one of the best ever made and even now after using LED for a few months I feel even more solid about that. I can understand the opinions of the LED's being so high, especially if you were burning screens with flouro bulb units or lower powered metal halide units, but I'm really wondering if anyone has come from a 5K and up metal halide to an LED unit that thinks the LED is significantly better or even on par with the MH unit. There are still more pros for our LED than the MH but fully crosslinking the emulsion and getting full exposures is not one of them. Our MH unit outperforms the LED by a big margin when it comes to the most important part of the equation...burning the image completely through the layer of emulsion.Has anyone come from a 5K Olec or one of the stronger Trilight units from M&R to an LED? I'm just looking for some perspective on how LED opinions have been formed. So if those of you who have gone LED could share what you were using previously and have time to compare/contrast the two I think it would be appreciated. I'm not knocking LED because even with my issues I think it's a better option than MH right now but in my opinion it's not superior in some ways that it's being assumed to be. It deserves praise but I think that we need to tap the brakes a little bit and put things in proper perspective so others who haven't pulled the trigger can get the whole story and one that isn't biased in any way.
Quote from: GraphicDisorder on May 12, 2015, 07:48:19 AMIll send him a message about this post, maybe he will chime in and make this interesting.Hopefully he'd do it in it's own thread in Running and Growing a Business
Ill send him a message about this post, maybe he will chime in and make this interesting.
Does this have anything to do with the thread? If I coat and dry a screen and then measure the EOM and get "X" microns, then expose and develop it and let it dry, measure again and get "X-4" microns, wouldn't that mean some emulsion went down the drain, thus underexposed? (How's that for a run-on sentence?)
Sorry Andy. I wasn't reading all of the posts.