Anyone use the IKEA VIKA Blecket light table?

filmamigo · Feb 17, 2009

I'm just setting up a permanent darkroom in my basement. I have been looking at some options for work surfaces, and my eye was caught by this IKEA table top:

http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/20103605

It's the VIKA BLECKET, and it comes with a light table surface built in. Has anybody used this? Is the diffusion appropriate? I don't need a fancy lightbox, and having one built in to the table top makes a lot of sense to me.

Any experience or opinions are welcome.

Dave

MurrayMinchin · Feb 17, 2009

Looks pretty slick. Did you find out what kind of light it uses? If it's a florescent light it'll keep emitting light for quite a while after it's turned off.

Murray

iamzip · Feb 17, 2009

The link provided shows only a tabletop with no legs or illumination. Presumably you could use whatever was most appropriate.

Kevin Caulfield · Feb 17, 2009

It looks like the light itself is not included as the item is just the actual table top.

Tim Gray · Feb 17, 2009

Yeah there is no light bundled with that table top.

Chan Tran · Feb 18, 2009

There is no light but it's worth a trip to Ikea to check it out. Looks very nice.

Jeremy · Feb 18, 2009

It shouldn't be too difficult to attach a small box with LED's in it and a power cord running out top the underside of the frosted area. I may have to make a trip to Ikea myself and check this guy out!

filmamigo · Feb 19, 2009

Yes, I was going to rig an incandescent or LED source under it. I saw it in the store with just a reflector light clamped underneath.

IKEA also have some handy rotating trays that attach to the cheapest legs for this table. Seems like it could be a good system.

George Collier · Feb 22, 2009

They don't give the dimensions of the light table part, but it doesn't look too big. When I built my darkroom, I built in a light box on the far end of the enlarger counter, the 1/4 inch plate glass is level with the rest of the counter. I installed little ping pong size bulbs, red and white, operated with two different dimmer slider switches. About 2 inches below the plate glass is a piece of milky plexiglass, which does a nice job of diffusing. The whole thing is maybe 6 inches deep and 20 inches by the width of the counter - big enough to compare two printfile sheets of negatives. I like the red lights, too, if in the dark. I don't trust them with paper, but I probably could, because of the dimmer. It was more work than some would do, but then, I like projects.

Tim Gray · Feb 23, 2009

This is from memory, but I think its 12-18" per side. Not HUGE but not tiny.

clayne · Jul 4, 2010

FYI I recently picked one of these up a few months back and finally got around to rigging up a lightbox.

The glass dimensions are 13x17" for the glass itself with 12x16" being unblocked by the mounting flange of the table itself (the glass is inset to the table). So I picked up an 11x15" Testrite lightbox from Freestyle and suspended it with framing wire supported by hooks screwed into the bottom of the desk. Took around 30 mins or so to do. Very easy - just pilot-drill (which is good practice anyways). It's basic home-engineering to get a lightbox in there. The glass itself is already frosted, but having tried the lightbox without the plexi the bulb was still plenty visible. I ended up keeping the plexi diffuser on it while under the glass.

Anyone use the IKEA VIKA Blecket light table?

filmamigo

MurrayMinchin

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iamzip

Kevin Caulfield

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Chan Tran

Jeremy

filmamigo

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