Any Aristo W54 Cold Head Tips?

[m00dawg]

Now that I have a cold light I might as well use it, though I'll keep looking for a colorhead and in the interim look at LED solutions in case I don't find one. Another downside of the color head is I need a place to put the power supply (transformer) and I have very little room for it. My table basically has the enlarger, the timer, and a small place to put Ilford filters. The rest is the easel. No real way to add any more room easily (I could set the power supply on the floor if the cables are long enough though). Solveable problem but one I'll have to ponder. I have a breadrack in my bathtub right now. I need to get some plywood so I can sit it on top of that to gain more room and then maybe I can just stick the power supply there (it's right next to the enlarger). Yes, I need a bigger darkroom but that won't be happening anytime soon so I have to make due.

[Drew Wiley]

The power supply takes up less space than a timer. No big deal. You could even set it on the baseboard beside the column.

[m00dawg]

But that's where my timer goes Although valid point I could put on the left maybe (where my filters are now). Other problem is finding one. None locally and the 'Bay had a few but were missing parts. The one that seemed complete was being sold by a pawn shop with a not so perfect rating so it was a bit of a gable. In the meantime though I'll give this coldlight a go to see what I think. If it gives me the same contrast as the condensers then it's still an improvement I think if I can tame scratches/dust better.

Thanks for the help everyone! Gave me some things to think about and try!

[m00dawg]

Just to update on this issue in case anyone was curious what I ended up doing, Louise mentioned they had a bulb ready to ship so I went ahead and sprung for it since it should avoid having to do any stop-gaps with filters or throwing the condensers back in. It may be a few more days to wait but way less than 7 weeks so I can perhaps wait that long.

Based upon suggestions I'll have to modify how I do test strips and things for now and may have to deal with inconsistent output until I get a sensor or what not but I'm going to try it to see how big of an impact that has and evaluate MetroLux. I dunno if he is here but there is a community member on other forums that is working on an awesome darkroom timer that I'm keeping a close eye on. He wants to do a Kickstarter for it soon and from what I've seen thus far, I'll be in line for that.

[jnantz]

m00dawg
not sure if this is a tip or not but what i have heard
one of the biggest problems people have with
these cold light heads is they plug it in and start printing
right away and things are screwy
... so don't forget you have to plug in the heater for like 15-20 mins before
you do any printing, and don't do long exposures ( unless you have that
metrolux probe ) ( like with a regular incandescent bulb ) long light times
( like 30 seconds for example ) will give different light than 5 6second exposures..
have fun!
john

[Robert Bowring]

I have used an Aristo VCL 4500 variable contrast cold light head on my DII for a long time. If you can find one it may be the best solution for you. They do pop up on ebay once in a while.

[m00dawg]

Thanks all! Yeah, a colorhead of some sort would have been a bit more ideal I think since it would be a diffuser, function like a conventional lamp, and have the option to dial in filters; but I couldn't find any good options locally or otherwise. Long term plan is still to consider building an LED light box. Build those right and they have instant on (if switching on the DC, not the AC side of the power supply), can also dial in filters, run cool, bright, etc. But hopefully this works for now. And yep the lag time is something I'll be accounting for at least with contact sheets. Since I don't have a Metrolux or anything light it, or a voltage controlled source, it's something I may have to deal with for now.

[neil poulsen]

I'm with Doremus . . . get a color head. I've been using a Beseler 45s for the last few years. While I've not done testing, no filtration is pretty close to a middle contrast (contrast 2?). For more contrast, add magenta, and for less contrast, add yellow. (Cyan stays on zero.)

That said, Ansel Adams had some recommendations for using a cold light grid in his three books - I think that it would be the one on The Print.

[m00dawg]

Oh snap really? I must not have gotten far enough into it (The Print). I've never tried a colorhead workflow for BW paper but it seems like split grade would be a nightmare with it? For that reason I kinda liked the # filters, although I had to give up my above lens filters to go with the coldlight.

[Andrew O'Neill]

I think it was Howard Bond several years ago in PT magazine who did a test with W54 and yellow filters. He was able to get fairly even, graded steps that way.