New here! I've been making b&w prints for four years now but I have never had my own darkroom. I was gifted a Beseler dual dichro 23c ii enlarger and I've got a couple of questions and would love some advice. About 40 minutes into printing (meaning the enlarger has been on) there is a small pop, I think from the power supply, and the bulb shuts off. The bulb won't turn back on for 20 minutes or so. I'm thinking maybe the fan isn't working properly? Any suggestions? And if it is helpful I am using the bulb the manual says to use a EJL 24V200W. I was also curious - where do people start with their magenta/cyan/yellow settings for black and white printing? Thanks!
If you go to the Freestyle.com site they have a listing that will show the settings. You can use the variable contrast because your filters work like the VC filters that used to fit in the drawers. The setting will vary with each different brand of paper. My Beseler is a 67C head and takes the 82V bulbs so I am no help there. It sounds like an overheat limit switch someplace. If you could use a fan to cool the head of the enlarger it may help. I know you don't want to have a fan stirring up dust though.
Sounds like an overheating issue to me as well. Perhaps the fan is not functioning. I essentially do split grade filtering with my dichro enlarger. First I make a test strip at 2 second intervals with the magenta filter @ max to find my time for the blacks. The Cyan stays at 0 and is not used in B&W printing. Second I make another test strip starting with the magenta filter @ max using the time derived from the first test strip, leave the test strip on the base/easel, then reduce the magenta to 0 and set the yellow to max and expose at 2 secon intervals to find the time to fill in the highlights. Third I make a print by setting the magenta back to max and yellow to 0 ant expose with the time derived from the magenta test strip, then reduce the magenta to 0 and set the yellow to max and expose for the time derived from the yellow test strip.
