It helps make the playing field for the electrons.
Also quite handy in getting the ballast grounded too : )
Put the sheet metal on the side where the
bulbs are and the ballast on the top. Flat head screws will allow you to securely
attach the ballast to the sheet metal and ground the unit by attaching the
green wires to the ballast and pig tailed to the electrical cord’s
ground. The screws will connect/pass the ground between the ballast and sheet
metal. No need to put sheet metal on both sides.
Eric
From: eric nelson
[mailto:emanphoto@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009
7:27 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: New UV lightbox
I looked at Nadaeu's book again and he lists sheet metal in the list of
parts. Mine is between the clips and ballasts and the board. I just
bought the parts and a friend assembled it for me so I don't know what function
it serves other than it works. Maybe for grounding? Hell I dunno
electricity, I'd just hurt myself.
On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Michael Koch-Schulte <mkochsch@shaw.ca> wrote:
I don't think so. Putting aluminum sheeting behind the lights
"might" give you a little more power because of higher reflectance. I
never, and my cyano exposures are between 4 and 10 minutes depending on what
I'm mixing up. Not sure why you would put sheeting between the ballast and the
wood though if a serious fault occurred it would burn through the aluminum
pretty quick anyway. You really pray the ground wire works if something like
that happens. My ballasts came with a ground wire which were all tied together
during assembly.
~m
Ken Sinclair wrote:
Hi all....
Becoming more than frustrated with s-l-o-w exposures (2 to 3 hours for
Cyanotypes)
in winter sunlight for exposing my alt work, I finally decided to bite the
bullet and
go for physical comfort and consistency (bypassing the trips out to the sunlit
deck
when the temperature is well below freezing) and build myself a UV light
box.
I have now taken possession of my set of new 20" BL tubes and ballasts. A
few years ago,
there was some discussion about "grounding" the ballasts. I am
wondering if something
like a thin aluminum (~ 1/32" thick) 'sheet' between the ballasts and the
¾" plywood sheet
that support the BL tubes' 'tombstones' on the underside. Would there be any
safety 'benefit' in
attaching a similar sheet of aluminum between the tubes and the ¾ "
plywood?
Ken
Quando omni flunkus moritati (R. Green)