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Thread: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

  1. #1
    Pete Oakley
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    LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    At the moment my darkroom is illuminated by a couple of low wattage incandescent bulbs, and they are safe when they are turned off unlike florescent bulbs and tubes. As incandescent bulbs are gradually being banned in the EEC would LED bulbs be safe in the darkroom when they turned off.
    Pete.

  2. #2
    Jac@stafford.net's Avatar
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    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    IMHO, LED safe-lights are a waste of effort and time. Of course they will be extinguished when turned off.

    Incandescent bulbs will always be available, especially as MIT has introduced an incandescent equal in energy conservation as LEDs to the embarrassment of the government.

  3. #3

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    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    He's not asking about safelights.

    Household Led bulbs do glow briefly after turning them off. It shouldn't be an issue though.

  4. #4

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    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    I use LED lights in the overhead sockets no issues. IMO, LED safelights are hardly a waste of time. Incandescent bulbs are a waste of energy. I have been using a DIY red LED safelight, that I can dim with a PWM based switch, for about 8 years. It is connected to my enlarging timer or straight through. I have fog tested it and used it for paper and ortho film without a problem. The great thing about true single color LED's is the very narrow color spectrum. It can be used pretty bright without fogging. Very handy for cutting down the x-ray film.

    Of Course, YMMV!

    Cheers,
    Geary
    Small Minds...What cannot be cured, must be endured.

  5. #5

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    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    FYI sidebar: My red incandescent safelight bulb wasn't working so I plugged in a red compact fluorescent bulb. Processed my ortho X-Ray film and it was fogged.

    Have read of several photographers installing IR LEDs in the ceiling of their darkroom. Turn them on and donning a night vision scope you can essentially "see in the dark". I believe workers at Kodak were the first ones to do this back when.

  6. #6
    Pete Oakley
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    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    Thanks for your help, I'll use a couple of ordinary LED's with confidence. Jac, I just want to hang a couple of bulbs, that will be safe when they are turned off, on my darkroom ceiling. The MIT is very clever but the price would need to be competitive before I even considered using them. I know that I'm on the dark continent of Europe but I had heard of this development.
    Thanks' again,
    Pete.

  7. #7
    jp's Avatar
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    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    Pete, use the search feature to look for led safelight discussions here. There are parts and URLs referenced for easy ordering. I use them.

    I visited UK Midlands area last year and loved the area! Visited JLR at Honiley airfield.

  8. #8

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    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    I have been using LED bulbs on my darkroom for some years now (enlargers, safe lamps, etc.). In my experience, LED bulbs (quality ones) are just much better than incandescent ones for almost everything.
    To my taste, energy saving lamps (cold cathode) are simply unusable for photographic purposes. LEDs are another topic.
    I have seen LED bulbs glowing after switching them off; in that cases it was an installation issue, not a bulb problem. Use the proper switch.

  9. #9
    David Brown bigdog's Avatar
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    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    I've switched out all white lights in my darkroom to led, mainly to stop the heat generation (I'm in Texas). My filtered safelights are all still incandescent, but they are, of course, such low wattage that it is not that big of a deal. As the safelight bulbs burn out, I will switch to led, but since led became commonplace, no burn outs. I do have some red led safelights, in addition, but that's a whole other discussion.

  10. #10

    Re: LED bulbs for illuminating a darkroom

    I installed and have been testing one of these from Super Bright LEDs:
    https://www.superbrightleds.com/more...Specifications
    They really are bright, I bought two of the four-foot strips for my 10' x 10' darkroom, but really only need one.

    Super Bright's specs show that the red version emits at 630nm, which I believe is right for variable contrast paper. I was told by Super Bright's customer rep that the LEDs are 335s, which emits a pretty narrow band, between 600 and 650nm:
    http://www.snowdragonledhk.com/image...35-led-red.pdf

    Best of all, they've passed the Kodak test in my darkroom.

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