Durst L1200 Laborator mixing boxes

[Ron Spencer]

Hi to everyone,

Thanks so much for all your help in the past. I've gotten so many helpful answers
to my questions. This is such a great place to come to for answers that you can't
get anywhere else. I have just purchased a Durst L1200 Laborator Multigraph
enlarger. I am now looking at buying a couple of mixing boxes. I just bought
one that says it is specifically for the Multigraph enlarger, but now I want to
buy another one that says it is designated "Femobox 69 N". Does this work
with the Multigraph? Does it work with the Femoneg AM negative
carrier? Durst naming conventions are so impossible to follow. And who
comes up with these names anyway? I shake my head at all these impossible
BLEEBLOP names. Sounds like the IKEA of enlarger companies.

Anyway, would really love to hear feedback on this question. I have the
opportunity to buy a 6x9 mixing box, but I just don't know if both L1200
heads (color, multigraph) use the same box. On the bhphotovideo site
there is only mention of one Femobox, so it would seem that both
L1200 heads (multigraph and color) would take the same mixing box.
I'm really confused, please help.

Thank you very much in advance,
Ron Spencer

[Michael S. Briggs]

The naming style of accessories harkens back to the old Leitz style. Perhaps it has something to do with Durst being in the German speaking portion of Italy? You can find their names in the manual, which you can purchase in PDF form from
http://www.durst.it/shop/.





I asked a similiar question about mixing boxes of Jobo USA, when they existed and were the USA distributer of Durst 4x5 enlargers. The best answer that I got was the the Multigraph was a later enlarger (supposedly with an improved light system) and that Durst guaranteed that it would work with earlier boxes. They didn't have an answer for whether earlier heads (e.g., CLS 501) would always work with MG boxes. But my L1200 with CLS 501 appears to have shipped from the factory with an MG 4x5 box (I got it unused, but at a used price). I guess "N" boxes are newer versions of the boxes for the CLS series of heads. So I think in practice all mixing boxes exchange with all heads. But there's no guarantee.





The difference between the Femoneg and Femoneg AM negative carriers is that the AM has a slightly larger opening. The Durst L1200 was originally designed as a 9x12 cm enlarger and the plain Femoneg crops a 4x5 negative very slightly. I can't see this having anything to do with mixing boxes, unless some old 4x5 box doesn't quite illuminate the larger area. No smaller size could possibly be effected by the difference between Femoneg and Femoneg AM.





Suppposedly the inserts that go into the Femoneg and Femoneg AM are not interchangable -- the sizes are slightly different -- but often they do interchange. Here I think the suffix "N" designates a mask for the "AM" version.





For information about the lensboards: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=004Qi7.
And the color heads: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006JA8.