From: Keith Gerling (kgerling@ameritech.net)
Date: 06/20/01-04:44:00 PM Z
For me, electrical things always seem mysterious no matter where they are!
In my case, I am in the Heartland of the US, where power is still
commonplace. I doubt if its a connection problem, as bulbs get quite a bit
of shuffling, usually in a pique of frustration after one of the seven
fixtures dims out in the middle of the LAST of six coats of gum, leaving a
light stripe across the print. As I described before, I often have to rub
the bulbs ferociously with a wad of aluminum foil to get them to respond.
Today, after placing a piece of foil between the tubes and the fixtures,
things have been much better. Best of all, no "dim-outs" and fast startup
after the unit has warmed up. It's been a good day!
-----Original Message-----
From: garimo [mailto:omirag@cruzio.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 4:58 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca; alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: RE: BL bulbs that usually has a problem "coming alive
>Well, I must have been suffering from a braincramp at the time I built my
>lightbank, because I honestly thought I was being instructed (by some lost
>source) to put a sheet of aluminum foil between the fixtures and the
plywood
>that holds them. In any event, after reading the posts by Kerik (and
>others) I saw the light and inserted a piece of foil directly above my
>tubes. While still not lighting immediately, they need only a brief swish
>from another piece of foil to bring them alive. Best of all, after they
are
>warm they all DO light immediately when the timer is reset. Perhaps during
>a period of downtime I'll give Ken's advice a try and reverse some of the
>fixtures.
>
>Thanks to everyone for all of the suggestions.
>
>Keith
I'm having a bit of confusion as to why your fixtures need aluminum
foil in order to function... Are you sure it was putting the foil in
that made for a improvement or just that you moved your bulb around
untill it made a working connection?? If the fixtures are working as
designed...why the need for foil?
In the past few years, I've built four banks of (BL) bulbs. Two for
the university, one for the community college and one for myself. I
followed the simple instructions that was published in the August 1995
issue of Camera & Darkroom. I used the cheapest 4' shoplight fixtures I
could find. Of the fourteen fixtures that I've used, one was faulty,
sometimes worked, sometimes didn't. I spent another 10 bucks and
replaced the fixture... no problems since.
I've never had a desire to add any foil... I wonder, Maybe you live in
India or maybe South East Asia where most all electrical things seem to
work mysteriously??
garimo
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