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« Last post by mk162 on Yesterday at 03:33:20 PM »
We used the 35% VLT film i believe. It's noticeably dimmer, but workable over the yellow lights.
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« Last post by ebscreen on Yesterday at 01:32:14 PM »
Update.
The 40 watt LED panels, 12' above, completely exposed a 305 mesh screen in 6 hours.
That surprised me, but I suppose it shouldn't, time being the huge factor here. Probably fine for brief
exposure but clearly not going to work for storage.
For now we're going back to the yellow fluorescent tube covers. From my reading, above ~400nm is visible light,
so by my thinking to block visible light will have a visible effect, IE working under that gdamn bug light.
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« Last post by mk162 on Yesterday at 10:54:36 AM »
Gut it out and install an led unit. Less, heat, less electric, less bulb replacements…
Pierre
This is what we did on our Amergraph 755k. It was a 7500 watt bulb on a 60a 230 service. Now it's 110v 20a service, shared with other devices. Still does a screen a minute, set 3ft from the bulb so I run them 2-up.
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« Last post by blue moon on June 30, 2026, 05:01:20 PM »
Gut it out and install an led unit. Less, heat, less electric, less bulb replacements…
Pierre
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« Last post by mk162 on June 29, 2026, 09:17:49 AM »
If they have the troffer style, put some UV film on the inside of the light diffuser. It's cheap and works great. Might run $20-30 for a some pieces big enough
Now I'm going down a rabbit hole of window films I didn't know existed. I might apply this stuff to all the skylights,
I kinda worry about sun damage to inks and thread and whatnot.
We ended up putting a light coat of white spray paint on the inside of our skylights. They were crystal clear and you'd get a sunburn hanging out under one.
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« Last post by ebscreen on June 26, 2026, 12:32:16 PM »
If they have the troffer style, put some UV film on the inside of the light diffuser. It's cheap and works great. Might run $20-30 for a some pieces big enough
Now I'm going down a rabbit hole of window films I didn't know existed. I might apply this stuff to all the skylights, I kinda worry about sun damage to inks and thread and whatnot.
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« Last post by mk162 on June 26, 2026, 09:45:33 AM »
If they have the troffer style, put some UV film on the inside of the light diffuser. It's cheap and works great. Might run $20-30 for a some pieces big enough
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« Last post by ebscreen on June 25, 2026, 05:50:57 PM »
We had high bay led's in the last shop, could definitely see those exposing screens. The lights we just installed are
only 40 watts, basically a replacement for drop ceiling fluorescent troffers. I'm crossing my fingers that it's not an issue.
Gonna do the quarter test for 8 hours tomorrow, we use diazo emulsion so it's both slow exposing and very obvious
when it is exposed.
The only place I've been able to find amber/rubylith rolls is on ebay, and those people think the stuff is made out of gold or something.
If we end up needing a filter I'll probably just order more of the welding-safe strip door we just installed, it would be kind of perfect.
Hoping we don't need it though, I can not stand working in yellow light. I'm not even in the screen room that often but it irks the eff out of me.
Anyone else have that issue?
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« Last post by Admiral on June 25, 2026, 02:01:44 PM »
We also use high bay LEDs. They do expose screens, I forget how long it takes but I believe when I did the quarter test with it they were pretty well exposed in 15 minutes with the LED closer than normal (6-8' away).
I started with UV blocking amber film. Worked great for 2-3 years. Turns out the LED burned through the amber film where it was strongest and turned the film clear and stopped working. Our screens were exposing, mainly the ones on top of racks. I then bought 1/8" thick acrylic amber UV blocking sheets and lasered out circles along with holes for bolts to go through and connect with a standoff to the high bay LED lights. Has worked perfect for 5+ years and the darkroom isn't too dark at all.
I did also tint the window across one of the doors to the darkroom (huge 5'x8' window) and the small window on the swinging door there. That UV was definitely exposing screens at first lol.
UV Process Supply is where I got that UV blocking amber acrylic but they seem to have gone out of business unfortunately.
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« Last post by ebscreen on June 25, 2026, 11:11:02 AM »
Does M&R provide schematics for their products? All my other machines came with them, and I would love one for our
Sprint dryer. I realized yesterday (after having this thing for 10 years) that there is a beefy 240/120 transformer that is powered on
24/7 (for the controls) that I would like to nix, it's just wasteful and will eventually die.
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