Chromega D won't light up?

Alright, so I have this omega super Chromegatrol D, and I have been searching everywhere for a Chromegatrol to power it, I previously had just the power supply which I bought a couple months ago, but after no luck with that, I bought a Chromegatrol from America for essentially nothing, (but $200 postage.)

it arrived today, and I've spent a good part of 5 hours trying to get my enlarger to work.

Everything powers on and sounds like it's working except for the lamp, and the fan.

The original fan was replaced by a previous owner for a dick smith 240v fan which just plugs straight into the wall. That works fine, but the lamp does not.

It is a brand new lamp confirmed working, yet it doesn't power on, and neither does the illuminating lamp for the front panel. These are both confirmed working.

There are no breaks in the cables between the enlarger cord/plug and the lamp sockets.

I'm thinking either when the person before me rewired the fan, they may have connected the lamp back to the wrong pin. Mine is on the middle two.

The lamp socket, although doesn't look the best, works fine and the connections are a-okay.

The enlarger socket outputs 250vac on the top two sockets, both when the exposure switch is powered on and off. 50vac on the middle two when off, and 98vac while on. The bottom two output 3vac when off, and 5vac when on.

The lamp sockets output 22.5vac when the exposure switch is OFF, and 35.5vac when it is ON. Is this normal? I thought it would be 0vac when off and something like 24vac when on?

Any other information I will be happy to provide, as well as more photos of the set up if needed, thank you for any help/information you have!

Please dear god help a kid out
I've spent too much time and money to give up now

Dear Oscar,

Maybe this will help.

Good luck,

Neal Wydra

i know the feeling, i hear the frustration. I am not familiar with the equipment, but have felt the same way...

for me i "take a break" and distract myself with something fun. you've done the 1 step by reaching out here on apug. let the network work, it'll turn out to be something simple. good luck.

Perhaps a connection in one of the twist caps is bad.

I have the German version which uses a different socket at the chromegatrol but the same "consumables".

The main lamp works at 22.5 Volts - 250 Watts (Omega 471-029, originally made by GE), the illumination has 120 V / 6W, and the fan runs with 115 VAC / 9,5 W. If you are not getting these currents (or something close) at your sockets, the wiring is messed up.

You can find some more information at the Khb website, their costumer service is good, too. They might be able to help.

Even though the Chromegatrol is an "electronic" device, the power delivery is a stone-age ferroresonant transformer. That is very good, because not much can go wrong with that. If the timer is fried, one could probably hook a switch in place of the final relay and then use a metronome.

Looking at your voltages again, maybe you don't have the correct 'ground' reverence for your measurement of those voltages. Maybe the Chromegatrol is good.

ic-racer said:

maybe you don't have the correct 'ground' reverence for your measurement

Click to expand...

I like this! (emphasis added)

Does a lamp plugged into the Safelight socket come on?

The schematic shows two neon bulbs, labeled DS1 and DS2.
I expect these are pilot lamps on the face of the controller.
Do they come on?

There are two electrolytic capacitors on the circuit board, labeled C1 and C2.
These are known to deteriorate with age, and frequently fail*.
If C1 failed shorted it would remove operating voltage from the timer circuit.

- Leigh

*NB: This has nothing to do with Omega. It's an industry-wide problem for decades.

A safelight plugged into the Chromegatrol comes on, but nothing in the enlarger itself :/

ic-racer said:

Even though the Chromegatrol is an "electronic" device, the power delivery is a stone-age ferroresonant transformer. That is very good, because not much can go wrong with that. If the timer is fried, one could probably hook a switch in place of the final relay and then use a metronome.

Looking at your voltages again, maybe you don't have the correct 'ground' reverence for your measurement of those voltages. Maybe the Chromegatrol is good.

Click to expand...

Sorry, but how do I make sure I have the correct ground? I probably sound like an idiot whoops

And the timer seems to work, as it makes a 'buzzing' noise for the time I set it

I had a simllar problem but it was not with the Chromegatrol, but the simpler one, a small block sitting atop of the power transformer. It was due to my mistake. Used the wrong bulb and it took out the winding on the transformer. Other parts worked but the lamp. Replaced the unit and all was happy again. Just my experiences, FWIW, YMMV

Oscar Brown said:

Sorry, but how do I make sure I have the correct ground? I probably sound like an idiot whoops

Click to expand...

for example, you can measure AC between two leads of the transformer, or between one lead of the transformer and the case or some other part of the unit. Results might be different. Do they use three-pronged plugs over there?