Anyone tried a LED-bulb in his enlarger?

[literiter]

Well, for very casual use it might. In serious use you would discover that fluorescent needs some 10-15 minutes warming up to be somewhat constant, so that timer switching like with incandescents is impossible - i.e. you need a shutter (and electronic leaf shutters and control boxes for enlarger use are hard to find).

I'd be curious to see if people experiment using the cold cathode lamp technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_cathode

 

[damien.murphy]

classical light bulbs are on black list in EU because of energy consumption and with that connected CO2 production rolleyes: .. do not get me wrong, but ... just forget it) and the production is being ceased.

This is a real worry, and as somebody hunting for enlarger bulbs at the moment, its a right pain.

Is there any form of petition to get the EU to put enlarger bulbs on an exception list ?

 

[bwcolor]

So, affordable film scanners are becoming scarce and enlarger incandescent bulbs are falling prey to eco-politics. Considering the diminishing market for these bulbs, perhaps this would have been an issue even without the politicians weighing in. We can only hope that enlargers and incandescent bulbs continue to be used in countries like China and India.

I had previously read about the LED project using primary color LEDS. If the enlarger market were viable, we certainly would be seeing a manufacturer stepping up to the plate with such technology. This sure seems like a great project for those of you that have the technical ability and time.

 

[Matus]

This is a real worry, and as somebody hunting for enlarger bulbs at the moment, its a right pain.

Is there any form of petition to get the EU to put enlarger bulbs on an exception list ?

I am not sure it would help. I guess nobody will keep a production line of maybe 100 or 1000 bulbs a week to keep our enlargers running. I guess we need to look for alternatives.

I would immediately stock up on bulbs ... if I ware to have an enlarger now

 

[sevo]

Is there any form of petition to get the EU to put enlarger bulbs on an exception list ?

They are not abolished. But between regular bulbs in that power range being abolished and enlargers marginalized in a mostly digitally photographing world, the economics of scale are effectively killing them. Once prices for the remaining new old stock rise to levels profitable for a resumed production, somebody will doubtlessly jump in. But that will take its time...

sevo

 

[damien.murphy]

I am not sure it would help. I guess nobody will keep a production line of maybe 100 or 1000 bulbs a week to keep our enlargers running. I guess we need to look for alternatives.

I would immediately stock up on bulbs ... if I ware to have an enlarger now

No offence, but that seems like rolling over too easily for me. Film workers who do their own wet printing may not be the norm, but as a whole are still a decent-sized group. I don't see any reason why enlarger bulbs could not granted an exclusion.

I hear what you're saying re: new technology, and have nothing against adapting (if the cost is reasonable), but I see much less of a possibility of this happening than simply being able to continue to use the current bulbs.

 

[damien.murphy]

They are not abolished. But between regular bulbs in that power range being abolished and enlargers marginalized in a mostly digitally photographing world, the economics of scale are effectively killing them. Once prices for the remaining new old stock rise to levels profitable for a resumed production, somebody will doubtlessly jump in. But that will take its time...

sevo

I was under the impression they were due to be phased out ?

In any case, I think new suppliers have entered the market, as fotoimpex.de sell bulbs produced by a manufacturer that entered the market after Philips stopped making enlarger bulbs. The newly produced bulbs are supposed to be produced to better standards (according to fotoimpex.de), but they're also more expensive

 

[Ronald M]

B&H has them. I am buying a life time supply. Standard PH211 75 watt are $5 each.

I like to think I am ahead of the curve. I also have several boxes that total a cubic meter or more full of household bulbs.

I inherited two lamps that came with CFL bulbs. They suck. They work well as long as you do not turn them off/on as the ballast is junk and they fail fast. Can`t put them on dimmers with I always use.

BTW, use a dimmer or voltage reg on the enlargerand the bulbs last halfway to forever.

Generally a round bulb needs to be a certain distance from the condensers to avoid light fall off. That is why houshold bulbs do not optimally work.

You might try an led with a diffuser over the condensers or no condensers. This will screw up variable contrast as will bluish LED sources.

 

[wolves3012]

Some incandescent bulbs are exempt because they have to be - like oven-interior lamps where no CFL or LED can survive the heat. Actually, the banning or attempted banning is incredibly short-sighted. Firstly, the "standard" light bulb has zero toxic content (compared to mercury in CFLs and all manner of nasties in the electronics required by LEDs - and CFLs). The only gain is in energy consumption, which is a small percentage. Add to that the fact that LED and CFLs do very nasty things to power companies' distribution networks and won't be popular when they are the "norm". Nevertheless, the politicians and policy makers plow on, oblivious.

As for enlarger use, LEDs have a totally different colour spectrum. They are no plug-in replacement, nor are CFLs. For B&W it won't matter as much, of course. One thing that may help - reduce the voltage a little with a resistor. First, incandescents blow mainly through switch-on surge, which a resistor will reduce vastly. Secondly, a 10% voltage drop gives +50% life (IIRC, it may be more).

For anyone who thinks banning incandescents is a wonderful idea, take a read at:
http://sound.westhost.com/lamps/index.html

Other technologies have their place but so do incandescents!

 

[Edward C. Zimmermann]

Dr Fischer Special Lamps (DR. FISCHER Speziallampenfabrik Gmbh) has taken up the production of opal enlarger bulbs. These are of a very high quality-- much better (more consistent and uniform opal coating and glass shape) than most post-80s Western European bulbs. They are much more expensive-- around 2x-3x the price--- than the Phillips or Osram bulbs were but hardly prohibitive..

 

[visiondr]

I know in California, the pseudo-environmentalist are trying to outlaw the incandescent bulb. I don't know if it is law or not. If so, we must rely on mercury based FL., or LED. FL have an awful spectrum and give me eye strain. Won't life be grand when they toss the mercury in a landfill.

According to several well-done studies, the amount of mercury contained in a CFL bulb amounts to far less than the amount pumped out by a coal-fired power plant required to make up the energy difference between the CFL bulb and an incandescent. That said, I too hate the colour temp of CFLs. I can't wait until LED bulbs come down in price. I hope the colour is better as well.

 

[john_s]

I'd be curious to see if people experiment using the cold cathode lamp technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_cathode

These tubes have been used in "cold light" enlargers for many years. Unfortunately Aristo, the maker of their own and other brands of the tubes (e.g. Zone VI), has been taken over and is in some state of non functioning as far as this small market is concerned. It is unknown at this stage if they will be able to manufacture parts for enlargers in the near future.

I use an Aristo two-tube VC head and it's marvellous. The tubes are violet and green, and you can dial in the contrast you want.

 

[ampguy]

well, this debate comes up regularly, so I'll repeat some of my experiences - I believe in the power efficiencies of CFL's for regular home incandescent replacement. The newest ones we're using are truly the same spectrum as our standard white incandescents. It's when you go to "cool" whites that the CFL's get funky and yellowy, IMHO.

The PUC's and vendors also over-rate the CFL's, a 15W CFL doesn't often equal a 60W CFL, etc. although there are savings.

They also have never lasted 5-10 years or whatever the box says for me, but then I often hang them upside down or use them in summer, so the ambient heat might be higher than what they tested them for.

LED's are a no brainer for flashlights. You just can't get the same power with the same batteries and form factor with a regular bulb. Check out the CREE LED stuff. incredible.

 

[ErnestoJL]

Actually I´m trying to convert my old enlarger to LED lighting because of several different reasons.
1-Enlarger bulbs are not available here since the ´80s.
I had to experiment with different bulbs and even positioning them carefully I had serious troubles to get even lighting.
2-Incandescent lamps produce too much heat which may cause neg distortion. This is specially awfull when you have to be ready for an exhibition. Paper is also expensive and I´m not eager to threw my money to the dump.
Any forced ventilation may cause vibration in the enlarger head as well as to move dust particles which may land on the condenser or worse, on the neg.
3-Low power FL and CCFL aren´t environment friendly and they require also special control techniques to get them stable in terms of lighting.
Worst of all, they aren´t made in the shape and size that will fit an old enlarger.

Then having all this in mind I started thinking of what can be done to get a low consumption stable light source. The only answer was LED lighting.
Some time ago I found a website whose owner did that and made a light source with white, amber, green and blue LEDs that was used for VC paper. Unfortunately, I didn´t recall where, supposedly my HDD will do, but it crashed…

Problems and benefits of LED lighting:
1-White LEDs have a lot of blueish light (about 5600 to 6200 K),. as well as some spurious UV emision so it has to be stopped to avoid weird results. This is due to the white LED building structure.
2-A mix of white and colour LEDs would bring good results as long as a decent colour spectrum is obtained. This requires some time spent in experiments.
3-It must be done with regular 5mm Hi Flux LEDs, instead of the High power LEDs (3 and 5 W) because light mixing will be easier to accomplish with simple 3 or 4 channels DC dimmers.
4-It can be easier to get even lighting using a "grid" of LEDs instead of a single source with a high power LED and lenses or diffusers.
5- Excess heat isn´t anymore a problem.

That´s why I would be testing LED lighting in my enlarger as soon as I have time enough. BTW, some of the minilabs offered have LED lighting… a good reason to test it, isn´t it?

Cheers
Ernesto

 

[ErnestoJL]

PKR, thanks for your post.
I think that pulsing is a good way to keep lighting variable but I don´t know how VC paper would react to it. A test is mandatory if one looks for good results at the expense of some sheets wasted.
The serious heatsink required is a must to keep the LED chip cool enough to avoid avalanche, as well a some current limitation (variable) to maintain light output stable.
s soon as I gewt something new, I´ll post it.
Cheers

Ernesto

 

[JayGannon]

True. The internet is killing the environment at a far greater rate. Each search engine question costs an hour of vacuuming, due to the number of computers, hubs, switches etc that must relay it.

Stacking up on bulbs might be a good idea!

Those figures are generally way off the mark as they are extrapolated from all data centrers in the world, a good DC with a low PUE approaching 1 will be much much more efficient than that.

 

[JayGannon]

This is a real worry, and as somebody hunting for enlarger bulbs at the moment, its a right pain.

Is there any form of petition to get the EU to put enlarger bulbs on an exception list ?

They are on the exception list, but as you know we here in Ireland are fecked in the way that the government has banned them as part of their own policies. So we can have them shipped in from France, UK etc but very hard to get them here outselves. John Gunn can probably get you pretty much anything though if you give hm a ring.

 

[Steve M.]

This has been an eye opening thread. I wasn't aware that traditional light bulbs had actually been banned in the EU. Matus has hit the nail on the head though. We can gripe and grumble about the idiocy or perceived wisdom (hah!) of our nutty leaders and the laws they introduce, or we can stock up on the enlarger bulbs. Buying enough to last a lifetime shouldn't cost all that much and solves the problem. I think it's the same w/ film. We can worry ourselves silly about it's future or buy a bunch and stick it in the freezer.

 

[Edward C. Zimmermann]

This has been an eye opening thread. I wasn't aware that traditional light bulbs had actually been banned in the EU.

You should NOT be aware since they have not been banned. What has been "banned" in the European Union is the manufacture and import of standard non-directional household (Tungsten) incandescent lamps through a phasing out from high wattage to lower wattage. Enlarger bulbs are not household bulbs (whose opal coatings have changed significantly from the days when Ansel Adams would use them in a pinch) and enlarger applications, like projection, is not a household illumination application. The reason that Osram (a division of Siemens) and Phillips don't make enlarger bulbs is because they don't want to. The reason that the production is phased out is because Siemens and Phillips wanted it to be so as they clearly found they could not be competitive with Asian imports. That's why they lobbied so that these bulbs would fall under the Ecodesign Directive (2005/32/EC).
As, however, I've mentioned not only are their sufficient stocks of enlarger bulbs to keep everyone happy--- the demand significantly declined over the past decade--- but fresh bulbs are in production (yes, Tungsten bulbs DO age!!)--- just not by Osram or Phillips.

 

[ath]

However enlarger bulbs were just a side product of incandescent production - with the production lines for high power general lamps closing down, enlarger bulbs get terminated as well.

I don't think so. Opal bulbs are widely available in Germany from Dr. Fischer since Osram and co dropped them.