Journey along with Frens Peters of Lotus Holland as he takes You step-by-step through the time-saving In-Line Exposure and Development Unit: The Lumenator.
Hi there 👋 This is Frens Peters from Lotus Holland, and I'm here to show you our in-line exposure and washout unit: it's called the Lumenator. The Lumenator was designed and built by Lotus Holland as complementary equipment to the existing CTS systems, like the wax-based KIWO, Exile Spyder or Douthitt, or the inkjet based i-Images.Â
The only parameter that you have to set is actually your exposure time. In this case, we are using a 122 screen.
We put on the exposure 21-step exposure calculator. I don't know what the actual exposure time is – we're going to figure it out, and we're going to estimate now that it will be 13 seconds. And this is how you set that on your Lumenator.
So you have six positions where you can store a time. If you push the settings button, you can go into those six positions and you can choose any one of them. I will choose position six. Change that into whatever you want it to be. Push enter, and then click on previous.
And now, timer six is programmed for 13 seconds. So, if you push the start button and then timer six button.
Now, you can already push the screen in. You see it's moving. You can push it all the way, and inside the Lumenator is a sensor that will sense the screen. It will stop the chain. It will push the screen against the back wall. There you go. The lights will come on for 13 seconds, and then after 13 seconds, the screen will be released and it will be automatically transported out of the Lumenator into the developer. The Lumenator has a full field of LEDs in the right wavelength 39545, especially suitable for emulsions for screen printing.Â
The exposure time is actually the only parameter you have to set on the machine. And now you can see the screen coming out. It's traveling towards the developer where it will be washed out. Make sure that you take off the exposure calculator in this step. In the developer, this screen will be washed out with fresh water. First, it will be rinsed with water from the tank. The water is being recirculated and reused. And then with a maximum of six nozzles going up and down with fresh water, the image is nicely developed, the water is pushed through the image.Â
Okay, so this is the screen that we just exposed and washed out. With the exposure calculator, seven is completely there and eight is almost completely gone, which is within the boundaries of what it should be. So, this is actually very good: 13 seconds. Some of you might use a scraper like this to scrape off the excess of water – that will shorten the drying time. But anyway, within a couple of minutes the screen is dry and ready to be used in production.
