Light Leak Super Chromega?

[Jon Middleton]

I have a light leak when a negative carrier is in place, from above and below the carrier itself. Is that normal or a problem?

[ic-racer]

Is that normal or a problem?

Both.

Make some kind of skirt and or paint the wall black where it shines.

[Jon Middleton]

The gasket on the head was compressed because the head was left in the down position. Looks like a new gasket would fix the problem. Maybe weather stripping would work? The darkroom walls are already painted medium gray.

[Larry Gebhardt]

Self adhesive weather stripping works fine

[LabRat]

As mentioned, the upper leak is usually due to deterioration of the gasket between the carrier and head... It can be worse if the head lift is misaligned, so check rasing/lowering head to see if it lowers evenly on the carrier every time...

The lower carrier to stage is supposed to mostly seal well, but some slivers of light are not uncommon... But if there are blobs of light there, it can be caused by an alignment job where someone tried to align stage without loosening ALL the screws at once, just one or two and pulling on stage causing a warp... If it happened, stage needs to be removed from enlarger, placed on a flat (like MDF panel), sandwiched with another flat, and tapped with a mallet to flatten... Sometimes if removed and flexed a little, metal has a memory that flatness returns to...

Take a straight ruler to the stage and lay across at all directions and look for a gap with a small flashlight behind it...

Some slivers of light that project to the wall are somewhat normal, but any projection near the easel area can be troublesome!!!

Steve K

[Jon Middleton]

Self adhesive weather stripping works fine

Thought so. Thanks!

As mentioned, the upper leak is usually due to deterioration of the gasket between the carrier and head... It can be worse if the head lift is misaligned, so check rasing/lowering head to see if it lowers evenly on the carrier every time...

The lower carrier to stage is supposed to mostly seal well, but some slivers of light are not uncommon... But if there are blobs of light there, it can be caused by an alignment job where someone tried to align stage without loosening ALL the screws at once, just one or two and pulling on stage causing a warp... If it happened, stage needs to be removed from enlarger, placed on a flat (like MDF panel), sandwiched with another flat, and tapped with a mallet to flatten... Sometimes if removed and flexed a little, metal has a memory that flatness returns to...

Take a straight ruler to the stage and lay across at all directions and look for a gap with a small flashlight behind it...

Some slivers of light that project to the wall are somewhat normal, but any projection near the easel area can be troublesome!!!

Steve K

Thanks. The lower leaks look very minor. I think the stage is okay.

[Mark Sampson]

The arms that raise the Super-Chromega head are not quite up to the job, and the unbalanced weight of the head makes it worse. Some careful fiddling with the four thumbscrews, that adjust the head's placement, will go a long way to solving the issue.