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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: GraphicDisorder on April 15, 2014, 11:24:57 AM
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Ships today, excited. Coming off a Amergraph that is something like 7 minutes burn time the last 2 bulbs we have put in it and seems to be only getting worse. Blanket is basically done as well as of this week.
It's getting bluer in here all the time.
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brandt, do you need me to resend you that email with "big blue" or I can send you the real deal?
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Wow... and I thought that I got ours fast...
Congrats...
But... you do realize although the while the Starlight is made by M&R, it's not painted blue :)
-J
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Wow... and I thought that I got ours fast...
Congrats...
But... you do realize although the while the Starlight is made by M&R, it's not painted blue :)
-J
I need to get with Rich on that paint code. :D
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Ships today, excited. Coming off a Amergraph that is something like 7 minutes burn time the last 2 bulbs we have put in it and seems to be only getting worse. Blanket is basically done as well as of this week.
It's getting bluer in here all the time.
What wattage was your Amergraph? Even a 1100k unit can burn dual cures much much less in time than 7 minutes.
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Ships today, excited. Coming off a Amergraph that is something like 7 minutes burn time the last 2 bulbs we have put in it and seems to be only getting worse. Blanket is basically done as well as of this week.
It's getting bluer in here all the time.
What wattage was your Amergraph? Even a 1100k unit can burn dual cures much much less in time than 7 minutes.
It's the 150, 1200 watt I think? It used to be much faster. Been slowly getting worse, new bulbs seem to make no difference either.
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Ships today, excited. Coming off a Amergraph that is something like 7 minutes burn time the last 2 bulbs we have put in it and seems to be only getting worse. Blanket is basically done as well as of this week.
It's getting bluer in here all the time.
What wattage was your Amergraph? Even a 1100k unit can burn dual cures much much less in time than 7 minutes.
It's the 150, 1200 watt I think? It used to be much faster. Been slowly getting worse, new bulbs seem to make no difference either.
Yea definitely not a bulb problem, knot sure how powering bulbs in those units work but something else was wrong.
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We run the same unit. Burn times on dual cure are 4-5 min. max. We had some problems about 18 months ago and sent the guts back to Amergraph. They rebuilt the unit sent it back, overnight, and we have not missed a beat yet. But if I could conjure up any excuse to get an LED unit I would. Congrats...
Chris
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we were running into the same problem on our old 40-1k, new bulbs and it still took forever to expose.
thankfully our amergraph unit here is cranking screens out well.
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Ya I am sure it could be fixed, but honestly if I can cut down exposure times as well we feel that's worth it. We are gearing up to be able to do a lot more work so faster exposure has to be a part of that.
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it's a smart move frankly. better unit, less power consumption, faster exposures
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I figure we can fix on the Amergraph and set it up to do our larger screens when needed.
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I figure we can fix on the Amergraph and set it up to do our larger screens when needed.
And nice to have a back up especially when you have the space to have a back up. I am jealous we bought our 401K a couple years ago from M&R I sure wish the LED unit was out then.
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Wish I was an equipment salesmen, I could rack up on you guys right now with all this new stuff coming out congrats on your buy Brandt, MOVING ON UP!!! 8)
Darryl
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I figure we can fix on the Amergraph and set it up to do our larger screens when needed.
And nice to have a back up especially when you have the space to have a back up. I am jealous we bought our 401K a couple years ago from M&R I sure wish the LED unit was out then.
there are a few things you need a back up of, an exposure unit is one of them, good call.
oh, and this is no bandwagon, this is the future... from 7 minutes down to 30 seconds...coming your way.
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Wish I was an equipment salesmen, I could rack up on you guys right now with all this new stuff coming out congrats on your buy Brandt, MOVING ON UP!!! 8)
Darryl
hahahahahahahahahahahah
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this time you beat me to it! I will have questions for you once you get it. Excited for ya.
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Congrats, we have been talking about jumping in on this bandwagon here too.
Murphy37
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Big b you should have jumped on the I image ste bandwagon! Lol nice buy though saw it run when I was at m&r recently it was super nice.
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Big b you should have jumped on the I image ste bandwagon! Lol nice buy though saw it run when I was at m&r recently it was super nice.
Wanted to pretty bad. I figure this LED unit will tide us over and ill sell it when we go DTS.
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and just like that its here.
(https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1.0-9/10270828_712743445433356_3305015377516182113_n.jpg)
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nice...you could easily build a shelf/bench and stack 2 of those and take up no floor space.
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nice...you could easily build a shelf/bench and stack 2 of those and take up no floor space.
I was thinking the same thing. We are going to put one of our small drying cabinets under it.
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nice...you could easily build a shelf/bench and stack 2 of those and take up no floor space.
Two would be overkill in my opinion. He can do upwards of 300 in an 8 hour shift easily.
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with ours, it takes me longer to align films on the screen, and rinse out the screen than it does to expose...
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2 is overkill, but a great backup is not ;)
best part is, when your backup is the same as your original, there isn't any messing around with exposure calculations.
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2 is overkill, but a great backup is not ;)
best part is, when your backup is the same as your original, there isn't any messing around with exposure calculations.
The light source has a lifetime warranty and if a customer has a failure of a component on the light board we will ship next day a replacement that takes about 15 minutes to change. I would not suggest a backup for this system.
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Doing some testing on burn times. Tried 22-24-26-28 on a 230. It looks like 30 or 32 seconds would be dead on. I was hoping to have it figured out ubber quick so we could do tomorrows screens but we are short on time. But maybe over the weekend we will figure it out.
We are using DZ 307 if anyone is also using that.
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Doing some testing on burn times. Tried 22-24-26-28 on a 230. It looks like 30 or 32 seconds would be dead on. I was hoping to have it figured out ubber quick so we could do tomorrows screens but we are short on time. But maybe over the weekend we will figure it out.
We are using DZ 307 if anyone is also using that.
you should be between 32 to 35 seconds for that emulsion on yellow mesh230. 22 to 26 on white 230 mesh.
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Doing some testing on burn times. Tried 22-24-26-28 on a 230. It looks like 30 or 32 seconds would be dead on. I was hoping to have it figured out ubber quick so we could do tomorrows screens but we are short on time. But maybe over the weekend we will figure it out.
We are using DZ 307 if anyone is also using that.
you should be between 32 to 35 seconds for that emulsion on yellow mesh230. 22 to 26 on white 230 mesh.
Awesome got any numbers for say-
158:
196:
305:
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What color 196?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
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Yellow
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158: 40
196: 28
305: 20
All +/- 2-3 seconds depending on eom
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
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158: 40
196: 28
305: 20
All +/- 2-3 seconds depending on eom
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
Thanks!
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Always!
Let us know if you need anything else.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
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158: 40
196: 28
305: 20
All +/- 2-3 seconds depending on eom
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
Thanks!
Alex beat me to it. His numbers are more accurate as well.
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One thing is for sure this thing is fast. Should be able to really crank out screens now.
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Any feelings for the difference in quality of burn yet? I know ours were night and day, but then again, we had a REALLY crappy unit before we got the starlight.
I burned 20 screens with it today in prep for jobs this weekend... start to finish in about an hour... (which for me is FLYING).
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Ok here is a question, how long does it take to draw down a vac, on my Atlas exposure unit the vac draws down in a few seconds ( I,m going to time it to be dead on tomorrow) and I get good screen in 2 to 3 mintues which is great with me. Now on my older unit the blanket sucks down fast, but it's slow exposing....but anyway if you add the time it takes to draw down whats your real time?
Darryl
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hey D..I timed the drawdown on my Starlight at 9 seconds, then exposure currently at 35 seconds with a CCI wr-14 diazo emulsion. I have exposed some photopolymers at 8-12 seconds.
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I think we have ours at 20 seconds on the vac but I suspect it might be a touch long. Forgive me we've had it about 3 business hours and used it about 5 minutes haha.
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Ours draws down in about 10 secs as well...
My ONLY complaint about the 23x31 unit is that they didn't put the same controller that's in the larger unit into it... it just has a generic timer for the leds, and no vacuum timer either... It would be nice if that would have been an option. Though, I do understand why they did it (keep costs down for us entry-level people). Honestly, it's not that big of a deal, just a tiny tiny complaint.
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I would assume my larger unit would take a little longer to draw down than the smaller one. We started with 20 seconds. Mine is all touch screen.
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for us, exposure is around 22-30 seconds, depending on mesh/coating and vac time is right around 8/9 seconds.
we line up all our films, rack up the screens with films loaded and then go to town. average time to load expose and load again is about a minute. We use a cover blanket so we don't ruin the vacuum blanket and that takes a few seconds to put on. by far one of the best purchases we made. If I could only snag sam's DTS, we'd be set.
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Is everyone receiving pricing @ ~$4300 for the single frame unit? I got pricing the day it was announced.
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Ours is the larger unit which is a bit more than that but you'd need it if you want to be able to use a Tri Loc
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Ok thanks.
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yes. ;)
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Ok I timed my vac and it's 45 sec on my Atlas and exposure 2 t0 3 mintue's thats fine for me....I see they us a quick vac on the LED unit like the vac on my old Prolight 1 unit it has a vac of 9 to 10 sec's but use tube's.
Darryl
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Does anyone have a histogram of the light in the starlight system? I am curious about the wavelengths it produces and at what the wattage the bulbs are.
Al
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I got one of these on craigslist essentially unused for $100: http://www.gastmfg.com/product_detail.aspx?ProductID=117&ProductTypeID=20 (http://www.gastmfg.com/product_detail.aspx?ProductID=117&ProductTypeID=20)
It pulls vacuum in 6 seconds on my 36x42" diy unit with a 3mm neoprene blanket, bottom mounted on the frame.
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Got a late start on screens today, just did 24 in 20 minutes. 1 burning, 1 washing. Quick!!
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Got a late start on screens today, just did 24 in 20 minutes. 1 burning, 1 washing. Quick!!
What took so long? LOL!
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Got a late start on screens today, just did 24 in 20 minutes. 1 burning, 1 washing. Quick!!
What took so long? LOL!
Well when our shop used to struggle to get 40 in a day done (1 person doing other tasks as well), 24 in 20 minutes was a good bit faster.
I bet this saves us a good bit of money over time. Easily justified purchase.
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Wish id done this sooner already.
From 137 - 230's we are around 32-55 seconds is our range. We have a guy washing out screens and I will do the burning and by the time he's done with washing out with one I have another ready for him. So its a constant flow.
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Well when our shop used to struggle to get 40 in a day done (1 person doing other tasks as well), 24 in 20 minutes was a good bit faster.
a "good bit" faster, I'd say a chit-load faster.
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yup.. totally worth every penny.
plus... no bulbs to replace... EVER.
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yup.. totally worth every penny.
plus... no bulbs to replace... EVER.
Less electric used, faster burn, no bulb to replace 1-3 times a year and so on.
I dunno, seems like a easy choice. I think I thought about it for about 30 seconds.
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Has anyone run long run discharge, HSA or water base with screens made on the Starlight?
If so how many units and how did the stencil hold up?
I'd like to recommend these units but need some data on durability with aggressive inks.
Alan
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Has anyone run long run discharge, HSA or water base with screens made on the Starlight?
If so how many units and how did the stencil hold up?
I'd like to recommend these units but need some data on durability with aggressive inks.
Alan
We have ran long runs of discharge along with standard mercury vapor exposed screens and saw no difference whatsoever in the stencil.
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I'd kill to see a side by side with a 3140 and Murakami SP1400. Microscope, eom, durability tests, the whole nine.
If it's on par with a metal halide then obviously it's a no brainer.
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Allen's counter part at Murakami, Walt tested SP 1400 on the starlight at one of our dealer open houses. If you want I bet he could email the info over.
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I can only comment on MH VS our Starlight and I am sure we aren't as precise as some of you guys so take it for what it is, but IMO the screens are looking as good or better. Any of you can come take mine for a drive if you like if your remotely close. I am sure M&R has them to play with as well. Our shop is a open door unless your Barnes or have him with you.
I don't think we have our times EXACTLY dialed yet but we are playing with it adding and subtracting a second seeing how it reacts. I think we are close.
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I'll extend an invitation for anybody in northern illinois/southern wi.
we're not a huge shop (and we work out of the garage), but you're more than welcome to come and see it/try it/bring screens to expose.
-J
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Similar here. Anyone is welcome. Have a two head STE running, and a Kiwo I-Jet right next to it.
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In that video that was posted awhile ago, Richard Greaves is endorsing LED systems. Pretty much nuff said regarding the imaging side of it. He mentioned that, way up close, you can see small effects on fine lines from the scattered light out of the array but that sounds like a natural thing and wouldn't effect textile printers though LED may not be ready for graphics printers just yet due to this.
Durability of the stencil is still paramount though and it still doesn't sound like a seasoned DC/WB shop has chimed in on long run performance.
So when is someone coming out with an LED drop in bulb for 5k Halide units? I don't have a good enough ROI to buy a new LED unit with our situation but I sure would pony up a grand or so for retrofit. Guessing there might not be a way to used LED as a point source yet.
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I don't think anyone will, and if they do it probably wouldn't be worth buying for what it would cost.
A metal halide takes high voltage AC, LED's take low voltage DC. Don't worry though, low voltage DC power supplies are a LOT cheaper.
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Not calling Mr. Greaves ethics into question at all, but he does or did work for Lawsom, one of the mfgs of these units.
I'd love to hear it from the horses mouth, and for me that would be an independent emulsion manufacturer. We have enough
variables to control without introducing more.
If we used Photopolymers I wouldn't consider it. But we use dual cures/diazo and are currently running two exposure units (3140 and a photosharp)
to keep any kind of reasonable throughput.
Next stop Murakami. Thanks Alex!
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I'll forward this thread to Walt for the Murakami questions as he is on the road and our lighting expert. I too want to hear from someone printing long run discharge, or short and if they have seen any stencil breakdown.
Like I mentioned once before, what is the Histogram? I can tell you a lot about an exposure unit with a histogram. The replies here show that it has it's place. I would like to know though how it performs on a multi-color discharge print with wet onto wet printing on a long run.
Al
Murakami Screen USA
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we've used the Vastex LED unit with discharge and had better results than with our NuArc 3140. These were mostly short and med runs (50-500 pcs) and have had good luck even without using the hardener. We did post expose on the longer runs at 30 seconds on at least one run, but it's been a while. This is with Aquasol HV.
We also ran a UV meter on it which showed a significantly higher amount of UV than our 3140 produced. Almost all of it was in sub 400nm if I remember correctly. Vastex has made some changes to their unit, and we are supposed to measure it again in Nashville before writing a report. In a nutshell, it all works as advertised! We had a tiniest amount of loss (about 1%) compared to a single source MH which makes their unit a great choice for 99.99% of the shops.
We have not tested the M&R unit with higher concentration of LEDs, but if spaced properly it should produce equivalent results.
pierre
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The next mid/large DC run we do I'll take the screens to the Vastex here in town and burn the screens. It might be a few weeks to a few months though. I know M&R has tested theirs extensively but I wonder how they do in different (less than optimal) environments. We all know how one emulsion can be bullet proof in some shops but not in others that seem to be almost identical in setup and equipment but if the LED units can somehow control those variables better and have more consistent results then along with the other benefits it makes sense to make the switch if you have an average MH unit.
Slightly different subject: I don't like buying a new bulb every 12-18 months but the speed of our unit and the (in my opinion) ridiculously high prices of the LED units (and MH units) it doesn't seem like it would be beneficial for us right now. I've never understood the prices for any of the exposure units to tell you the truth. I know they're worth what people are willing to pay for them but even our awesome Solarbeam is just a metal box, bulb, balast, shutter, 5 toggles, a gauge, and a membrane touch panel and the parts by themselves don't add up to 1/6th of the cost of buying one new. We've all seen DIY MH units that will perform on par with a Solarbeam and I doubt 99.9% of the people could tell the difference between the stencils on the DIY MH and the Solarbeam even with a loupe. I can't do anything about it and my knowledge of the expo units out there isn't vast enough to argue but I can complain and have an opinion on it, ignorant it may be.
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Out with the old in with the new...as stated some shops can and will take full advantage of the starlight, and some will just have a new toy which would be my case if I bought one.
Darryl
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I have no real solid knowledge about LED units, I have talked with the creator/manufacturer of the Light Speed brand LED unit for probably 4-5 years now. He said his biggest hurdle was finding the proper LEDs that would hit the right spectrum.
I have always wondered why we don't hear about DIY LED units, DIY LED conversions or DIY DTS. Seems like every other thing in this industry has some sort of DIY version. I kinda figured by now we would of heard about something.
I fully believe that a good amount of times one is better off buying a commercial unit. Time saved, pitfalls avoided, not re inventing the wheel, ect. it all ads up. But like Alan, I think these LED units are way overpriced currently. They will probably stay that way for a few years till there are viable less expensive options that can produce good results. Then all the prices will fall.... Similar to back in the day a 100' roll of ink jet film was like $110, now what is it like $50?
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I have no real solid knowledge about LED units, I have talked with the creator/manufacturer of the Light Speed brand LED unit for probably 4-5 years now. He said his biggest hurdle was finding the proper LEDs that would hit the right spectrum.
I have always wondered why we don't hear about DIY LED units, DIY LED conversions or DIY DTS. Seems like every other thing in this industry has some sort of DIY version. I kinda figured by now we would of heard about something.
I fully believe that a good amount of times one is better off buying a commercial unit. Time saved, pitfalls avoided, not re inventing the wheel, ect. it all ads up. But like Alan, I think these LED units are way overpriced currently. They will probably stay that way for a few years till there are viable less expensive options that can produce good results. Then all the prices will fall.... Similar to back in the day a 100' roll of ink jet film was like $110, now what is it like $50?
DIY version of this style led is coming. Just working out the final details on led choice.
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we've used the Vastex LED unit with discharge and had better results than with our NuArc 3140. These were mostly short and med runs (50-500 pcs) and have had good luck even without using the hardener. We did post expose on the longer runs at 30 seconds on at least one run, but it's been a while. This is with Aquasol HV.
We also ran a UV meter on it which showed a significantly higher amount of UV than our 3140 produced. Almost all of it was in sub 400nm if I remember correctly. Vastex has made some changes to their unit, and we are supposed to measure it again in Nashville before writing a report. In a nutshell, it all works as advertised! We had a tiniest amount of loss (about 1%) compared to a single source MH which makes their unit a great choice for 99.99% of the shops.
We have not tested the M&R unit with higher concentration of LEDs, but if spaced properly it should produce equivalent results.
pierre
But is the Vastex unit significantly faster then your MSP3140? Same unit as we have by the way. Just asking as I want to change our exposure unit as well to LED sooner rather then later. Cost of electricity is a bitch here in Japan so if that unit is a lot faster and as well cheaper then comparable other brands then it would work for us. Do you know what changes they have made on their units?
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yes, it is significantly faster. The Vastex unit was exposing screens at 13 seconds compared to 1.5-3 minutes. Starlight has many more LEDs and is even faster (3-5 seconds is my understanding). Starlight is a little more money, but it does have more LEDs and it also has preview lighting (there might be more).
I was told what was being changed, but have not confirmed anything and not really sure what they would want me to say so I'll keep the info to myself for now, sorry. You should be able to get those answers from Vastex as I can't see a reason why they would not give you (or anybody else) those answers. My understanding is that few tweaks were done based on the customer (us included) feedback. This does nto make the older units obsolete, just the new units even better. For example, Mark mentioned using a bigger vacuum pump for faster draw down. . .
pierre
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I have no real solid knowledge about LED units, I have talked with the creator/manufacturer of the Light Speed brand LED unit for probably 4-5 years now. He said his biggest hurdle was finding the proper LEDs that would hit the right spectrum.
I have always wondered why we don't hear about DIY LED units, DIY LED conversions or DIY DTS. Seems like every other thing in this industry has some sort of DIY version. I kinda figured by now we would of heard about something.
I fully believe that a good amount of times one is better off buying a commercial unit. Time saved, pitfalls avoided, not re inventing the wheel, ect. it all ads up. But like Alan, I think these LED units are way overpriced currently. They will probably stay that way for a few years till there are viable less expensive options that can produce good results. Then all the prices will fall.... Similar to back in the day a 100' roll of ink jet film was like $110, now what is it like $50?
Vastex has a retrofit kit, not sure if it's for their units only though. I know Lou (the guy who designed and makes the Vastex LED strips) has mentioned an LED kit, but again, not sure if this was for me or public in general. It would not be too hard to get the info from Vastex and even potentially have them work with Lou for the custom solution.
As far as building your own, unless you have some pretty solid engineering skills I would very strongly recommend against it. getting the right distance between the LEDs and then getting the right distance from the glass is very tricky. The light emitted by the LEDs is cone shaped and if not set up properly will create significant undercutting or hot spots. We covered all this before in a different thread. . .
pierre
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yes, it is significantly faster. The Vastex unit was exposing screens at 13 seconds compared to 1.5-3 minutes. Starlight has many more LEDs and is even faster (3-5 seconds is my understanding). Starlight is a little more money, but it does have more LEDs and it also has preview lighting (there might be more).
I was told what was being changed, but have not confirmed anything and not really sure what they would want me to say so I'll keep the info to myself for now, sorry. You should be able to get those answers from Vastex as I can't see a reason why they would not give you (or anybody else) those answers. My understanding is that few tweaks were done based on the customer (us included) feedback. This does nto make the older units obsolete, just the new units even better. For example, Mark mentioned using a bigger vacuum pump for faster draw down. . .
pierre
Last question, which of those Vastex units did you try. They seem to have a few different ones, at least in size.
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yes, it is significantly faster. The Vastex unit was exposing screens at 13 seconds compared to 1.5-3 minutes. Starlight has many more LEDs and is even faster (3-5 seconds is my understanding). Starlight is a little more money, but it does have more LEDs and it also has preview lighting (there might be more).
I was told what was being changed, but have not confirmed anything and not really sure what they would want me to say so I'll keep the info to myself for now, sorry. You should be able to get those answers from Vastex as I can't see a reason why they would not give you (or anybody else) those answers. My understanding is that few tweaks were done based on the customer (us included) feedback. This does nto make the older units obsolete, just the new units even better. For example, Mark mentioned using a bigger vacuum pump for faster draw down. . .
pierre
Last question, which of those Vastex units did you try. They seem to have a few different ones, at least in size.
the middle size one. It shoots one 23x31 at a time.
pierre
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So you have to get the larger one to use tri lock? Also how many weeks out is it to get one shipped out?
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So you have to get the larger one to use tri lock? Also how many weeks out is it to get one shipped out?
not sure about either Vastex or M&R unit. I am sure they both make versions that accept a Tri-Lock, but since we don't use it, I have no idea how big they are or what it takes to install one. Reach out to the manufacturers, they can give you all the info. Sorry I could not be of more help. . .
pierre
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So you have to get the larger one to use tri lock? Also how many weeks out is it to get one shipped out?
not sure about either Vastex or M&R unit. I am sure they both make versions that accept a Tri-Lock, but since we don't use it, I have no idea how big they are or what it takes to install one. Reach out to the manufacturers, they can give you all the info. Sorry I could not be of more help. . .
pierre
our Starlight 3140 will fit the Triloc the same as our MSP3140. Delivery is 4 weeks
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Anyone(Rich I imagine you would know this ;D ) have a "list" price on a Starlight unit that would handle 25"x36" frames? I have looked at damn near EVERY company website that that sells M&R and maybe only 4 of them even have the Starlight listed. >:( That is not a hit on M&R, I just am kind of a snob when it comes to websites....Even though our company site leaves A LOT to be desired! ;D