Gralab timer repair

[MIke Sherck]

My newish (4-5 years old) Gralab 450 enlarging timer was a casualty of a lightning strike a few days ago. Gralab's web site says $63 fixes it. Has anyone used their repair service in the past year or so, and if so, how long did it take and what was your experience? Thanks!

[Jeff Morfit]

After getting your timer repaired I recommend that you buy a surge proctector for your darkroom equipment. Unless I am using my timer, safelight and enlarger, I always unplug them when finished printing. If you by habit leave your darkroom equipment plugged in, even when not in use, I would strongly suggest to everyone to purchase one or more surge protectors. Most people just consider them as protection just for computer equipment.

[MIke Sherck]

Thanks for the advice; pretty much everything of value in the house is plugged into a surge protector and the computers on my home network are all on uninterruptable power supplies. The protector on my darkroom equipment was on an older "power strip" type surge protector and enough of the voltage spike apparently got through to zap the timer. It still works but erratically and it needs to be fixed. I've already replaced the surge protector in the darkroom; these things can only take one hit. This one was quite old and probably pretty cheap when I bought it, that's why it wasn't protecting anything too valuable. I can print with a metronome until the timer is fixed.

[Nick_3536]

All I can say is $63 is more then I paid for a used 450. Won't you have to pay shipping both ways? Personally I'd rather put the money towards something new and better instead of getting the 450 fixed.

[Oren Grad]

Mike -

I had Dimco-Gray fix my GraLab 645 last summer. It was 10 years old and had failed after sitting under very humid conditions for a while when unusually heavy rains had led to substantial seepage and sustained excess humidity in my basement darkroom over a period of several weeks.

I shipped it out on August 25 and they shipped it back on September 12 - not bad at all. The $63 price included return shipping. The invoice said that they "replaced analog switch quad bilateral". So far as I could tell, everything that mattered to me worked after the repair, though the 645 has lots of functions and I didn't test every last one.

The only snafu was that I had to remind them to charge my credit card - they just forgot. < g >