Aristo cold light equipment

[Curt]

It appears that the product line that is or was known as Aristo Cold Light is not going to appear again, at least as we once knew it, so I ask the question, if you have one what will you do when the bulb goes out, is not working correctly or is broken.

Aristo products covered many other applications besides photography, Illuminators for the medical and scientific fields among the few. What do you think they will do when they need a new bulb for one of their expensive units.

I personally don't think there will be a resurgence in the manufacturer of enlarger condensers entering the loop again as they were before cold light systems. LEDs seem to be above the affordability mark for the average photographer and homemade models are ad hoc setups that may work for one but not another.

Commentary: Will we turn to coloheads to replace cold light units for black and white printing or even further back to Ansel Adams with his former 36 incandescent lights behind opal diffusing glass purpose made unit from an old studio camera enlarger. It had a huge cooling fan to take out the large heat build up. In reality though there is a movement away from filament incandescent lighting so history will erase that from the list in the future, near or far.

Lastly, what will the enlarger of the future look like? Is there a future for new enlargers? Not in the gloom and doom aspect but as a practical problem that deals with changing technology.

 

[Dan Henderson]

I have a relatively new Aristo cold light head that I love using, so I too am wondering what I will do when my bulb needs to be replaced.

 

[ic-racer]

My own opinion:
1) Cold cathode tubes last a long time
2) Power supplies for the Aristo heads were pretty generic (the PS for mine was just a housing for a 450v transformer).
3) No need to "go back" to tungsten/diffuse/dichroic lighting, as it has always been the best solution to get colored light onto the baseboard and diffuse light onto the negative

Future: refurbished dichroic heads. The filter's don't fade. Power supplies can be rebuild or bulbs can be run off the mains and fans can be easily replaced.

 

[epatsellis]

an alternative option, find a neon glass bender and tell him which voltarc tubing to use. Shouldn't be all that difficult to reproduce the tube, If what remains of Arista deems it too small of a market, then somebody there should be able to tell you what tube to use, and what gas mix they used, though it wouldn't be hard for a glass bender to determine that from seeing a working head.

If it really concerns you, before your tube breaks or goes kaput, locate one and have one bent up. If you do go this route, please let us know what tubing the glass bender found worked best (there's only a few suppliers of coated tubes anymore, Voltarc being one of them, so it should be easy)

 

[jeffreyg]

Check with LCD Lighting, inc. I have an Aristo VCL4500 that I have been using for MANY years without lamp replacement. One of these days it will go and hopefully I can find replacement lamps which I understand are quite expensive.

 

[removed account4]

i have aristo cold light heads for both my 4x5 and 5x7 omega enlargers ( D3V mil + E4 )
but i also have condensor heads for both as well. i guess if i need cold light - i still have
the "omegalite" the E4 came with ... it's unfortunate, but i had a feeling this day would arrive ...

john

 

[NormanV]

I have a Durst cold light head but no power supply. Can anyone tell me what is needed. Problem is that I don't want to spend a lot of money if it proves to be faulty. How can I test it?

 

[mike c]

All ways thought it would be possible to put a hole in the roof and attach a mirror on one of those equilateral telescope mount things to fallow the sun as it travels across the sky.Mornings for thin negs noon for dense negs and evening for what ever. Use a timer with a light probe like the metrolux and print away.
Mike

 

[Curt]

Thank you all for the collective thoughts on the subject, I see some reasonable solutions and discussion here, even mike, the Sun is a source of light and if it goes out there won't be a need for photography.

 

[mike c]

True,True.

 

[EdSawyer]

Did aristo close up shop?

I bought a new replacement tube for their beseler 45 coldlight head about 6 months or so ago, I think.