Help With a Beseler-Minolta 45A system

[fuegocito]

Hi all,

I have adopted a Beseler 45 enlarger ststem that came with two heads, one is an older Cold light head and the other is the Minolta 45A head. I am completely baffled by the Minolta head as I have just found out, it flashes for light output(?)

So at this point I don't know if it's working, or not working, or maybe partially working. When I plugged it in the controller shows a very faint display, not enough to read but it does flickers something. The head pops when I press the on/off switch and that seems to be all it is doing now. My question is, is this normal operational condition or I need to replace some if not all the tubes? And if so, how does one know which one needs replacing?

The cold light head is a bit on the dim side but it seems to work as it should...

thanks in advance.

Robert

[Gary Beasley]

So I take it you dont have a manual? Try toggling the focus mode on, should give you a more or less continuous white light. If not tube is shot. This is an additive color system so the controller runs three different flashtubes behind red, green, and blue filters, any of which can go bad. Usually abad tube will be blackened severely or cracked. I may have a digitised manual on my other computer I can upload to you at some point, have to get to it and do a search.

[fuegocito]

Thanks Gary, and yes, the head didn't come with a manual. I think I must have played around with the focus mode and it didn't do anything...I have open the unit and the tubes does not appeared to be burned/cracked but it/they could very well be dead anyway. There is one longer tube that runs perpendicular to and on top of a series of five slightly shorter tubes sitting underneath red blue green filters. And the display on the control unit is so dim that it's unlegible, is that normal? or that should work once the focusing tube is working?

cheers

Robert

So I take it you dont have a manual? Try toggling the focus mode on, should give you a more or less continuous white light. If not tube is shot. This is an additive color system so the controller runs three different flashtubes behind red, green, and blue filters, any of which can go bad. Usually abad tube will be blackened severely or cracked. I may have a digitised manual on my other computer I can upload to you at some point, have to get to it and do a search.

[EdSawyer]

the display is dim by design - it's to be used in a color darkroom - you don't want a bright display. Try it in the dark and see how it is. It should be usable.

Sometimes the buttons get sticky and non-conductive, and require internal cleaning. That could be why the focus button is not working.

I have a full set of manuals and docs posted here:

https://pubpages.unh.edu/~eme39/beseler_45A_manual.zip

-Ed

[fuegocito]

Thanks a million Ed!

This is certainly one very funky head design to say the least.

[EdSawyer]

Glad to help out! It's such a nice head in many ways. I used one at work back in the 90s and came to love it (well, most of it). They are so cheap now it's almost comical. It was $2600+ when new, now you can get them for $100-200. The built-in analyzer and ring-around system is excellent, and that's just one part of it.

[Gary Beasley]

if you find your head is dead I would sell my 45A with spare tubes, I quit using it after I got my DG head. its an interesting concept but I find no real advantage to using it.

[keithboston]

Turn it on and hit focus - if it starts to flicker and then goes out quickly with a pop, it may be damaged or bad capacitors. The focus function should stay on for almost a minute before turning off quietly. At the current cost, it was easier to just find another one that did work. Don't worry if you didn't get the color meter, it's not necessary.

[fuegocito]

Thanks for chiming in Keithboston. So the lastest development, I plugged it in and powered it up in semi darkness and sure enough, the display works fine. It is a bit on the dim side, with all the sophistication electronic factoring into the design, I am somewhat disappointed that it does not have a display dimmness control like the Gralab timer does :-)

I still have not read the instruction manual yet, my excuse is that I am testing the intuitivess of the design and I must say, it's not like anything I have play with it before and I don't think I can fully make it work without reading the manual. One thing is certain that the focusing light tube is either burned or some sort of malfuction within. I can fire the the exposure flashing tubes by turning the power switch off so that seems to be working, assuming all five of them are firing.

I will have to dig into the manual to see how the thing suppose to attach to a timer, and how does the flashing suppose to work in relation to linear time exposure.

Sigh, this is one of those instance freebie does not equal to free sailing....

[EdSawyer]

Just read the manual - you will need to, for sure. It doesn't use a timer per se, it does it's own internal calculation for number of flashes needed for a given exposure setting. You can ratchet up the numbers (in 1cc increments) to add/subtract density. You can also use the meter to determine exposure and color balance, once you have calibrated it for whatever you want. When I used one professionally, we had 3 channels set up for color balance for white, black and fleshtones. It worked great, nailed exposure and color on the first print (this was for a newspaper so working fast was critical sometimes).

my workflow is standardized on a couple different films, so usually I am not using the color ringaround or metering functions, once I get the exposure dialed in it doesn't change a whole lot from print to print, presuming film is correctly exposed.

Also remember it is additive, so works the opposite of subtractive heads. But once you get used to that, it actually makes more sense and is easier to conceptualize, I think. Plus additive heads with narrow filters will have better results with color materials than subtractive heads with wide filters.

-Ed