Ulophot
2-Apr-2025, 18:15
This item may have been posted previously, but I just got one and installed it, and thought I'd pass on my experience.
From Superbright LEDs, I got item # EGLB-x. Mine is the 18” model. https://www.superbrightleds.com/linear-led-light-bar-fixture-100-lm-ft?queryID=dedb3abfd321b5b8bd8705b79dd1e94b. (And no, I have no connection with them.)
My darkroom does have a “sheltered” enlarger station, so I am at some pains to keep light dim at the enlarger base. (See attached layout.) Normally I use amber safelight, but Fomatone requires red light. I previously had installed 2 red LED mini-globe bulbs near m regular safelights, but despite considerable efforts to control the light, I found visually disturbing the intensity on the wall areas on which the light was bounced from a few inches away, and have been planning for a while to find a better solution.
The bar is just 5/8-inch wide and very light weight. After playing with placement and light-baffling ideas (it’s VERY bright), I attached it to a piece of lath wood and hung it about 10" from the ceiling with monofilament, over the fixer area of my sink. For baffling I used black oak tag an inch or two up the sides with an overlapping cover piece that has some rectangular holes cut in it to allow heat and some light to escape. The cover is a few inches short of the bar's ends. The light is about the brightness at my developer tray of the amber light, and about the same level at the enlarger. I’ll keep the other red light over the paper cutter, which was the less disturbing of the two.
Had I a light-segregated enlarger station, or an ability to douse the safelight when the enlarger goes on as many timers allow, that little bar would be plenty to make the darkroom very bright.
258829 258830
From Superbright LEDs, I got item # EGLB-x. Mine is the 18” model. https://www.superbrightleds.com/linear-led-light-bar-fixture-100-lm-ft?queryID=dedb3abfd321b5b8bd8705b79dd1e94b. (And no, I have no connection with them.)
My darkroom does have a “sheltered” enlarger station, so I am at some pains to keep light dim at the enlarger base. (See attached layout.) Normally I use amber safelight, but Fomatone requires red light. I previously had installed 2 red LED mini-globe bulbs near m regular safelights, but despite considerable efforts to control the light, I found visually disturbing the intensity on the wall areas on which the light was bounced from a few inches away, and have been planning for a while to find a better solution.
The bar is just 5/8-inch wide and very light weight. After playing with placement and light-baffling ideas (it’s VERY bright), I attached it to a piece of lath wood and hung it about 10" from the ceiling with monofilament, over the fixer area of my sink. For baffling I used black oak tag an inch or two up the sides with an overlapping cover piece that has some rectangular holes cut in it to allow heat and some light to escape. The cover is a few inches short of the bar's ends. The light is about the brightness at my developer tray of the amber light, and about the same level at the enlarger. I’ll keep the other red light over the paper cutter, which was the less disturbing of the two.
Had I a light-segregated enlarger station, or an ability to douse the safelight when the enlarger goes on as many timers allow, that little bar would be plenty to make the darkroom very bright.
258829 258830