Very nice work with the 8x10 enlarger! If you go commercial with the controller, do you think you will make a whole light source kit? I imagine there are plenty of us on here who might be interested.
Very nice work with the 8x10 enlarger! If you go commercial with the controller, do you think you will make a whole light source kit? I imagine there are plenty of us on here who might be interested.
That’s the idea. It depends from how interested the commercial partner I’m working with is. But I guess a kit version is possible even if the partner don’t want to develop a commercial product. Then I can imagine to only make a printed circuit board for LF and sell it with a parts list. I made prototypes for 35mm and MF too, and I work on a set to convert SRL cameras into small enlargers. The partner I’m working with see these “smaller” formats as better products for the beginning.
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Hello. Glad someone is working on a new saleable item. I would need one for 4x5 to fit an Omega D-type enlarger. I started a thread or two on that a while back and learned even more fully how much I don't know about electronic devices, manufacturing costs, and marketing!
My principle starting point, was that I thought a simple LED-source head, without contrast control, to replace the cold-light diffusion heads quite a few have now, could be built and marketed for a good deal less than the "Mercedes" level of the English Heiland model. I continue to hold out hope that something of this sort will eventually emerge.
Best wishes on your success!
Philip Ulanowsky
Sine scientia ars nihil est. (Without science/knowledge, art is nothing.)
www.imagesinsilver.art
https://www.flickr.com/photos/156933346@N07/
Interesting, Does your partner know much about analog photography and enlargers? The local photography center where I am has been given so many small enlargers by schools, businesses, and other individuals closing shop that they sometimes give away 35mm and medium format enlargers for free. At least for me, it's the large format ones that are much harder to track down, so my instinct (with no market research done, mind you) is that those would be a better place to start, as there I get the impression there would be more of a market. I even ran into a photographer a few days ago in real life who is looking for an 8x10 light source after his beseler one broke while moving.
Oh, they know their way around very well, and are among the leading analogue shops in Europe. But they make little turnover with large format. Also LF is in fact much less common here as over the pond. I myself first suggested a conversion kit for LF. But the typical customers are apparently the „new“ 35mm users who have no idea where to find an enlarger. If my potential partners want to go only with the small things, I will make these for them keep the LF for me and offer a kit. Anyway the code and parts list I posted here in enough to reproduce the LF LED system. And I will help anyone that wants to build one. I just wait to produce a printed circuit board by my own, so that actually a legacy build will have a lot of wires insted of a clean PCB. But will work.
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Cool, I wonder why large format is less common in Europe, even though most of the good lenses come from there. Have you found a company to print circuit boards? I know people in the U.S. who have gotten them made, and I don't recall it being that expensive. It's even possible to do it yourself relatively easily if you have some time on your hands. For the 35mm enlargers, will it be a rear camera door that has a light panel built into it? Keep us updated on your progress, it's an interesting idea.
Don’t really know why LF is less popular. Maybe we are used to 'smaller' stuff here (our cars are smaller too). I use beta-layout.com for the boards. I used it to make make several prototypes of industrial controllers in my job (i'm into alternative energy production) with it and it's ok for small PCB series.
The 35mm project is quiet simple. No need for special camera back: just a simple camera with bulb mode. The biggest problem is that an usual SLR 50mm lens used in reverse isn't really a good choice for enlarging purposed (distorted borders), but this will be a real simple solution for beginners. Any SLR lens from 70mm will give acceptable results.
Here is a picture of the first 'quick and dirty' prototype and from the Wlan control.
You connect to the integrated Wlan hotpsot and control the module with any mobile phone browser. No app needed. There is an integrated timer too. I will update it to color mode YMC too.
Very cool! The phone controller is a great idea too, does it manage all the computing needs of the light source?
I wonder if reverse mounting the lens would make for a better image. FotodioX makes adapters for macro photography with a bayonet on one side and a filter thread on the other. In my head that might work better, because the lens would be facing the correct way around for where it's projecting the image, though an extension tube might also be needed to get the focus right.
I do like LED anything, but don't want any film device to NEED a phone interface
buttons, rheostats
twisted wires
maybe a barking audio control so I can yell at it
Tin Can
Yes. The phone controller can compute everything. Despite having only 32kB of RAM. It's basically an version of ESP8266. Cheap an reliable.
Reversing the lenses makes all aligned with no distorsion. Using it 'normal' from 70mm on the distorsion is not so really visible but still there . I will take a look to these adapters.
Edit: I actually checked at B&H and the adapters are indeed simple and have a reasonable price (around 8$)
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