Amber/Ruby lights

[zacgil]

Hey All,

We are in the midst of a big remodel and I'm getting a shiny new TINY prepress room to work in.  There's all this talk about making sure we get amberlith or rubylith to cover the lights to make sure its dark enough and no UV is in the room.  While I understand that there is a use for these colored lights, are any of you guys still working in a dark room?   The year+ i've been here we have not had any type of special lights in our prepress department, so I'm wondering if there is still a need.    I know if we move to processless plates, that those will be more light sensitive.  But, we have not made that jump yet, and I doubt we will in the next year or so. 

Thoughts?

[Slappy]

Not here, no. At the previous shop we have UV "sleeves" to cover the lights in the plating room but they weren't amber or ruby, just UV reducing so I guess the plates could survive a little longer if left out. That was when they still needed to bake though, now it does't seem to matter too much.

[Diddler]

We only have non UV lighting (yellow) in our room where the plate/imagesetter & processor are.
As for working in the dark yes we still have sales reps here who could do with SPECIAL lighting.

[DCurry]

No special lighting whatsoever, and we're using Kodak process-less plates. We typically run them no longer than a day ahead of when they're to be hung, and we just pack them up face-to-face so the emulsion side is not exposed.

[Possum]

Our plates and plate maker are in a semi-dark room. 

Your mention of amber reminds me of a pressman who used to put yellow masking sheets in the fluorescent light fixtures in lieu of buying yellow bulbs. It's a wonder the stuff didn't catch fire.

[Farabomb]

That's what was in the conventional plateroom at my old place.

Not that it mattered, the conventional guy didn't do much more than push a broom and stare at the alchemy I was doing with the computers and the new fangled machines.

We were using AGFA LAP-V at the time so instead of colored lights we would just lock the doors and shut the light when loading new plates. Getto but it worked.

[zacgil]

Thanks for the feedback!

The original plan was to use the amber sheets like Possum said, until the whole "what if we catch fire" came into play.  Everything has been ordered and mostly installed at this point.  We installed 2 different sets of lights in the prepress room.  One set for processing and one set for when we want to clean the machines.  Every two feet of ceiling is a new light fixture.  Just seemed like overkill to me, but what do i know.

[Joe]

I don't think fluorescent lights get hot enough to burn anything.

We have amber lights directly over the CTP machines. The other half of the room where the processor is just has regular fluorescent lights.

[Farabomb]

That's one of the bonuses of fluorescent light. They don't throw off near the amount of heat incandescents throw off. Heat is wasted energy.

[Ear]

I just switched all the blubs in my Jeep interior, including gauge cluster, to green LED. Looks effin' awesome.

[andyfest]

We only have non UV lighting (yellow) in our room where the plate/imagesetter & processor are.
As for working in the dark yes we still have sales reps here who could do with SPECIAL lighting.

We use normal fluorescent tubes with slide-over UV filters in our plate room.

[Ear]

We only have non UV lighting (yellow) in our room where the plate/imagesetter & processor are.
As for working in the dark yes we still have sales reps here who could do with SPECIAL lighting.

We use normal fluorescent tubes with slide-over UV filters in our plate room.

Yep, same here. Same when we had red lights in the camera days. Even a period of time where early imaged film required green lights, and we used the slip covers.

[Farabomb]

I just switched all the blubs in my Jeep interior, including gauge cluster, to green LED. Looks effin' awesome.

I've done both blue and red before in my cars. Now I just don't have any lights. The cluster lights up when it feels like it and there is no dome light. Just the android in the bottom corner of the A pillar to give speed and speed trap warnings.

And on that topic how do people think that having their GPS smack dab in the middle of the window, right in your line of sight, isn't illegal or smart? That big window is to see out of and not fucking hit people. You shouldn't have ANYTHING blocking your field of view.

Common sense is now a superpower.

[Made in Taiwan]

I just switched all the blubs in my Jeep interior, including gauge cluster, to green LED. Looks effin' awesome.

Love my Ford's green dashboard lights, too!

[Ear]

I just switched all the blubs in my Jeep interior, including gauge cluster, to green LED. Looks effin' awesome.

Love my Ford's green dashboard lights, too!

I thought about blue but I like green better and blue can be quite distracting at night.