Ryonet FX LED Exposure Unit

[Rockers]

Indeed it is. I expected it to be a lot cheaper.

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 don't see the point in this. Why do you need a notification after a 30 seconds exposure? We are currently taking 10 minutes per exposure, THAT would take an app, but 30/40 seconds? And what is there to control on an exposure unit aside from time? And you need to be close to it, it's bluetooth, not wireless.

That`s cool though. Maybe the app can as well place the screen on the glass of the unit lower and lock the lid and so on. Vorsprung durch Technik.  Anyway, I`m pretty certain that exposure unit won`t be any worse then the Vastex we got.

[Sbrem]

I would like to pose a question to this group.  What light source makes a better stencil, single point or multi point?

When I started, I used a NuArc Carbon Arc Lamp, and that was a true point source, like the Sun. A tiny little point of light that could injure your eyes if you stared at it, very powerful. From there, I graduated to 5K Metal Halide because it was much safer to use (carbon arcs give off ozone and other bad things) and it worked great, and still does. The smaller and more powerful the source, the technically better your stencil will be due to the basic principles of light geometry. That being said, I'm sure the unit in question works fine, it reminds me of the Richmond, and probably the 3140, which I've never seen up close, but a light in the bottom of the box with the screens lying horizontally above it in a vacuum frame. We know a properly built LED unit like the Starlight (many kudos on this board) will do an excellent job, so this question is moot to me... I will say that some claims are a bit fishy to me, which I tend to see as selling something shiny to the less initiated, but not totally evil. Nor do I see any real bashing, at least not as I see it...

Steve

[TCT]

Wow I missed quite a bit here! Sons birthday party weekend and let's say I was out mowing the grass last night by headlight!

The only thing I was trying to say was this new guys came on and was saying he was achieving amazing results(lpi) and he got jumped on. It was the same when Sergay came on with his amazing prints and said they were on a manual and NOT using CTS.
When I read that it inspired/motivated me. I had always read 55lpi, MAYBE 65lpi if you are feeling frisky. I'm guessing(totally an assumption) that Sergaey either haven't been told that it didn't believe it, so he set his bar higher. It really got me excited, what else has I read we COULDN'T do? We have probably half a dozen custom discharge/waterbase/plastichatge/plastisol whites and underbases we use now because we wanted to try to take it further.

As far as the unit in question here, it's interesting. Aside from that, if Al from Murakami doesn't say it is the real deal, I'll stick with what I got. I can see why some people are so skeptical, Ryonet hasn't exactly been known for high-end cutting edge intentionally developed products. More the starting out, and learning market. But who says they can't start to make a change? They got the $$$$. You got to start somewhere. It is pretty chicken crap that they will post videos and promo stuff but not back up a technical thread like this that screams for insight from developers.

We as a group don't always make it real easy for new people to join in. Hell, I was a lurker for a few years. There was Dottonedan who regularly writes novels in his posts, and his fellow author Alan. Frog had been around since TSPMB, Bimmridder was made out to be the nicest teddy bear you ever met(come to find out that was beer influenced) and I was afraid Brandt was going to bitch slap me after I said HI. After meeting all of you guys,(Alan you still owe me a date a believe) come to find out you are all real good guys and screen printing geeks like myself.

What my novel(thanks for the inspiration Dan and Alan) is trying to say is - that dude said he was doing way high lpi designs, who knows if he was/is holding under 5% or over 95%. I don't care one way or another. If he is, that's sweet and maybe with a warmer welcome we all may learn something new.

Geesh, getting sentimental like that, must be my time off the month!

You guys let me know when Printa releases their laser exposure unit and I'll be interested again!

[LMPrinting]

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.

[Screened Gear]

LMPrinting,

Thanks for posting the print. I love the subject of the shirt. I am building a vintage bike. I hope you didn't take what I said in a bad way. I just read so many posts that people are doing high end work and when you see the work its not even close. LPI is misleading since your output device, driver and rip software can make the dots different sizes. For example when I started over 6 years ago I used Ghost Script to make half tones (it was free). Then I upgraded to Filmaker and the dots were way smaller. I would guess 30 to 40 percent smaller for the same LPI. Then you have dot gain and all the other issues most people don't even know about. Then you have dots that don't or cant wash out at the higher LPI. I have done work up to 65LPI just to see if I can do it. I can. My set up is rather dialed in. I still can do some fine tuning and need to do some adjusting for Dot gain. To be honest I don't want to go too much farther into the high-end printing arena. I make good money with high quality, mid range designs for corporate and businesses.

I hope you stay on this board and offer up some more info from your work on high end high LPI work.

Thanks Jon.

[Dottonedan]

Nice print. Though it's a nice print, it says nothing about what dots are being held.  Maybe it was 81 lpi on a 305.  That then leaves the smallest dots to be in the 15% area and nothing below. It's a matter of the threads being too large that block the ink from getting printed, not the ink it's self. That's why you see no faint (small) tones/dots in the brightest areas. In fact, it looks washed out or posterized in those areas and would be an intentional or planned act by an experienced separator and printer.

It's cool to do 80-100 lpi and get really small dots that make up everything in between the drop offs at highlight and shadows, but we here just like to straighten out what people might get miss directed to believe. We wouldn't want the newbs to go out there printing sheets of film at 100 lpi and then wonder why everything is plugging up.  Even those mid tones need adjusted so that they show more depth.

We've seen some really interesting prints from Mark Gervais (shown recently at ISS) making use of waterbase inks and discharge using 60lpi and very low mesh like 135, 160 and 225 using S mesh.  A link to a video was posted here on this forum. He was using low mesh like this is a similar example. Yes, it's very low mesh with what is considered a very high lpi for those mesh, but he designed the seps to not use low % that would normally be blocked by the threads.  You can see in his art that rather than use small dots, he used additional colors such as 11 colors. For a full color image, if he were to have to reduce it to 6 colors, it wouldn't be possible. You'd have to have lighter shades such as 3, 5, 10%'s  and you just can't do that on low mesh using small lpi like 65.  Same for high lpi like 100 on a regular 305 mesh. Again, it's not the inks, it's the mesh threads at a specific size dot that gets blocked. Probably something near 15% or even higher.

[Rockers]

Rockers, do you have the upgraded vacuum pump/system in your unit?  How long are your vacuum draw down times?  In the beginning I was as disappointed in this aspect but overall the inability to do something in getting a nice, full exposed stencil that has always been so easy with the Richmond metal halide is costing us more time than the extended vacuum time.

Alan, the vacuum draw down times are around 25 sec on our unit. What really cost us time is having to redo screens just because fine details did not come out proper.
We shoot CCI HXT 1/1  on a 150-S yellow for around 75 sec. Unfortunately I can`t find the email from Vastex with their exposure times for certain emulsions and mesh counts.

[Maxie]

Best thing to do is get a 21 step exposure test and  make sure you'r on a density of 7.

[Sbrem]

Older guys what? Kind of a broad brush, methinks. A few years ago, one of the artists mistakenly output an 8 color sim process at 85 LPI. We decided to go for it, figuring the worst would be that we remade the films and screens. We ran i on 355, and it prints pretty well, though some extreme ends of the scale we under represented. However, the art allows for that in the end, the customer has reordered a 1/2 dozen times. We run this with plastisol, not WB. A lot of years ago, when I worked in my old shop, a customer came in with their own seps @100 LPI and said, "Just run 'em." Did it go perfectly? No. Did it look like what the guy had been selling right along? Yes. Again, 355 mesh, which was always my go to mesh after reading Joe Clarke and Mark Coudray's "Control Without Confusion" back in the eighties. I've always pushed the envelope a little to get the result, and I've never had a problem listening to what works for someone else, even if it's totally unconventional. Now, if you want to really show the result you claim, show us an extreme closeup of the 3% or 5% dot at 81 LPI or the 100 LPI on the 305 mesh screen, so one can see the threads going through the dots and maybe make a better judgment instead of leaping to conclusions that it can't be done based on our shared past experiences. The post of the shirt is kind of blurry, I'd like to see a really clean one. Maybe this should break off into another thread?

Steve

[jvanick]

Best thing to do is get a 21 step exposure test and  make sure you'r on a density of 7.

if you don't have a stouffer strip and/or other exposure calculator, and you're posting exposure times, you have NO idea what you're doing or how good your screens are.

FYI, I've been told recently by a major emulsion vendor that for the CTS users, that a 6 on the stouffer strip is perfectly acceptable since there's no glass or film involved.

[Maxie]

OK Stoufer strip.
I don't quite understand that, 7 on the strip is after the glass, its what they say is  the correct exposure the emulsion needs to give a good result.
How is this effected by the image being on the screen with a CTS?

[jvanick]

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.

[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.

[jvanick]

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.

[Dottonedan]

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.

I imagine because the results (a 6 or an all depend on the variables such as stencil thickness, emulsion type, film or no film or even dry not less dry, but it probably would be within + or - of 7.  I'm no expert on that.