Durst 184 vacuum tabletop, do you know something about?

[Ginette]

Do someone operate a similar device of his Durst 184? or have the original info from Durst for this vacuum tabletop
What do you use as pump? or what will be your suggestion?
The left control (pins for paper position?) doesn't look to work, any cues?

Here some additonnal pictures https://www.flickr.com/photos/ginett...7649443907465/

[John Jarosz]

A shop vac should work. You need to use the big hose to insure there's enough airflow.

Film is easy to get to lie flat. For enlarging paper you may need to remove the curl so the edges stay in contact with the easel.

[bob carnie]

Please let me know if you ever want to get rid of this unit Ginette.

I have all your paper ready to go , just trying to find time to make the Drive to Montreal.

[Kimberly Anderson]

Yeah, that vacuum easel has me jealous too. Put me in line after Bob.

[Drew Wiley]

Even a cheap Shop Vac has way too much suction for a vac easel, plus you get dust going right thru those things, and otherwise stirred up, unless the hose is run in thru the wall. You'd need to install a "bleeder valve" on the hose to lower the suction. I've seen various papers permanently marred, indented, from hole marks,
and sometimes even exposure effects with little hints of circular shadows. It takes very little vac draw to pull paper flat if the easel is properly designed. Even a
household handheld cordless vac is enough, even for really big paper. But don't use a peristaltic diaphragm pump, because the pulsations can actually vibrate the
platen some easels, and slightly affect sharpness.

[Ginette]

Yes inlet is so tiny (less than 1/2") that I will not put a 4" ShopVac on this!



Drew, I will look for a cordless vac that I can put a small hose onto.

Some controls on the right side of the board.



The center knob probably act as the bleeding valve by exposing / covering holes when it turn



Sorry Bob but we are not in the For Sale section! but if you know something about, let us know too! (And I have also your 2 Thomas safelights ready to go!)

Anyone have original Durst info about?

[gary mulder]

If you are able to read dutch.
http://www.apug.org/forums/archive/i.../t-100393.html

[bob carnie]

These kind of vacuum tables were pretty standard issue in my photo comp days.. basically the top film was larger than the receiving film,( the larger film would draw down and make tight contact with the receiving film) if you were using an enlarger you would put register
pins on the platen and place the receiving film down emulsion up , and then oversize masking film(usually) ortho lith films to mask out areas and reveal areas you wanted to drop the images into.
the vacuum would not be turned off during the whole process.

A vacuum back was on my Lise Camera and it too worked on this principle... the different channels basically forced the vacuum to the size of the film you were comping. For dedicated 8 x10 work we used smaller
vacuum tables with a complete draw from the bottom.
The smaller units were actually hooked up to a wider hose.. the one you show was different draw system.

[Drew Wiley]

Oh gosh ... I gotta figure out where to stash a 184 in the shop over the holidays until I get a path cleared for it in one of the inner rooms. Wouldn't be so bad unless except the bathroom tile starts the same week, and I gotta figure out where to temporarily store all that travertine too. My fingers are already a mess.
Maybe I'll have to give away the ole Omega 4x5 enlarger just to make space. But it's sure been reliable.

[Tin Can]

Perhaps we need to say that hose diameter at the same vacumn is more volume. Almost meaningless in this application.

So ignore all that as long as the suction (vacuum) is sufficient to draw your paper flat.

You control suction by observing your vacuum gauge and adjusting a bleed off valve. The range of vacuum is obviously zero or no vacuum, to perfect vacuum which is 30 inches of water, usually just says 0 to 30 on any USA gauge. However only deep outer space is perfect vacuum.

For your purpose you will use less than perfect vacuum.

Try 10 on the gauge and go higher or lower as needed. The size of the suction device is not important, simply that it work as quickly as you like.

A normal shop vac is way overkill. The smallest shop vac is fine, and simply connect the shop vac with any combination of hoses to do the job.

However as some have stated here, shop vacs are too powerful for this application and blow dust all over your room.

A better solution is a dedicated vacuum 'pump'. Mine is some very expensive industrial pump I got for free, but an automotive pump like this will also work just fine.

Drew will tell us that that pump is garbage, and it is, but it will work. Your usage is minutes of low vacuum, not hours of high vacuum like these pumps are designed for.

Another factor is how many and how big of holes are we sucking on. As soon as you lay paper on the holes you are blocking off most of them and that is what we want. All uncovered holes are just not doing anything and are wasting suction.

Let the sharpshooters take aim.