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LED Safelight Findings

Jim Jones said:
A circuit with a dimmer is useful for incandescent safelights. Additionally, this can greatly extend the life of the lamps.
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Dimming a household incandescant bulb, safes electrical energy and prolonges the lamp longevity (which already is about 1000h) and makes filtration easier, without loosing too much red radiation.
It could be though that ready-made incandescant red safelight lamps for this reason were designed to run underrated. I never checked that.
 
mgb74 said:
I'm confused. If your safelight is only emitting light in a "safe" wavelength, why does the color of the wall matter? I didn't think it could alter the wavelength when "bounced".
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I always bounce my safelights off surfaces. So in my case, there is no direct exposure to un-bounced light.
A tungsten bulb emits a range of wavelengths. The filter built into the bulb attenuates some of them. There will always be some "unsafe" wavelengths that get past that filter, but if the intensity is sufficiently low, they may be sufficiently safe.
There is, however, a further possibility. If the intensity of the unsafe wavelengths is attenuated in other ways, then an un-safe safelight may also be rendered safe. One common way to attenuate them is to move the source a sufficient distance away from the paper. Another way is to bounce that light off of a surface, like a ceiling. By bouncing the light, you both increase the distance, and cause a loss of intensity due to the incomplete reflectance of the surface. The colour of that surface will have a marked effect on that reflectance.
 
MattKing said:
It was sold as a safelight in a "camera" store.
I expect the new paint has a higher green component.
It (the bulb) looks a lot like this: Dead Link Removed
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The ones that I looked at were clear for about an eighth of an inch near the base and they were being sold in a photo store. The one pictured looks lots better.
 
Guys, drop the Rubylith and test theatrical lighting gels in various deep reds. There are thicker gels that are designed to resist fading with 1-2 thousand watts of light. Rubylith is pricey and getting hard to track down. You should be able to find a gel that would last for years with the heat of LEDs.

I used red spiral "party" flos for some time, and covered them with whatever red gels I had in my lighting kit - they worked fine until I went with the superbright screw-ins, which I've had no trouble with.
 

If I could advise you on one element is the plumbing, keep it very simple , in fact I use a simple fawcet like a shower controller and to this faucet I connected a very long hose Red heavy duty,I use this
hose to work all sides of each sink , the hose is about 20 ft so I can reach three sinks, simple floor drains and your good to go. I would never , ever , ever again plumb copper to each sink station.
 
I read this plumbing advice several times, but still did not get wiser.
 
AgX said:
I read this plumbing advice several times, but still did not get wiser.
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Years of darkroom work is involved in making this decision... after about 15 commercial darkroom builds I tend to make them much simpler .

A long hose can be walked on , moved to any location in the darkroom with ease, you can clamp it to any tray or print washer.. you can sit on a drain and have a bath.

not sure if this will make you any wiser.
 
I understand now that instead of stiff pipes (may they be from Copper or PVC) you used a flexible hose (likely from PVC).
 
AgX said:
I understand now that instead of stiff pipes (may they be from Copper or PVC) you used a flexible hose (likely from PVC).
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Here in US there are 3 "legal" ways to plumb hot and cold water that I'm aware of: copper, cpvc (rigid plastic), and PEX (flexible). Plus, outside the wall, flexible hose like you used or a toilet feed or washing machine. They each have their advantages and disadvantages.

In my darkroom, I used copper as it's relatively inexpensive (you can buy as much or as little as you need) and I knew how to solder the connections. But I also used flexible hose to connect between my water temp control and filter to my sink distribution. So I can modify or move my faucets without having to change the filter.

My darkroom is very small, there is only room for one sink and only one logical place to install it, so no need to distribute to multiple sinks or change sink location.

Even in my small (7' x 8') darkroom, I'm able to use a Thomas Duplex safelight (vanes closed). But if/when that goes, I'll change to the LEDs. Because my darkroom is so small, I painted walls black to minimize reflected light (probably overkill), but the ceiling is white.

 
AgX said:
I understand now that instead of stiff pipes (may they be from Copper or PVC) you used a flexible hose (likely from PVC).
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No a heavy duty garden rubber hose, extremely portable , I put an on off valve at the end of the hose. Rubber baby
 
OK, looks like it is time to compile a purchase list. Any more points or tips before I take the plunge will be appreciated.

Probably going to bounce the wetside lights off the celling for diffusion purposes. I also snagged two 72 yard rolls of 1" Rubylith tape for good measure.
 
For those of us with a phone or table with an OLED display there are various apps that can be downloaded to turn the screen into a light panel. The red LEDs should be a very consistent red. Trying for yellow and orange could be an issue as the blue and green LEDs start adding to the mix.

Do not try this with a typical LCD screen like you get with one of those "other" devises. Stray wavelengths will pass thru the LCD filter even though the light "looks" red.
 

The only LEDs that I have found to be safe without Rubylith are ones with a centre frequency at the very red end of the spectrum. It does depend, of course, on how bright you want. I have chosen rather bright but very red LEDs, and an orange-red one with convenient on-off switch for brief use.
 
I have decided to just to do the LED on the wet side for now since that is what I am working on for a couple months. I have a Nova LED safelight set I had been using in my other darkroom that I will use on one enlarger and will figure out the other two later this year when I get to dry side work on my build.

So I put in an order for a 16.4' foot strip of red led, dimmer, power supply and moulding with frosted lens. I plan to add rubylith tape onto it. That will take care of the main stretch of sink, the other 9' feet of sink will be print washer and film development territory so my standard safelights ought to be fine there.
 
Got the 16' foot red LED in, looks really clean and *very* red, was a breeze to install. I am able to dim it down quite a bit but won't know if I need or want to use rubylith or not until I run a test.

All in all a lot cleaner than a few Premier safelights with cords hanging everywhere. The lower shelf is actually my chemical fume extraction duct, the length of the 9' foot sink.
 
That's very nice! What are the dimensions of your space? Our school is putting in a new darkroom over this summer and the total space is about 17x22 feet, subtract light traps, etc, and it's a little too cozy but it's a new darkroom with a new 48x127 inch communal sink. The drywall and doors went in this week and the room will be taped and painted real soon.
 

It's about 13' x 32' feet with a diagonal wall near the stairwell leading to it, darkroom is a basement space. My main sink is 33"x110" with a second one at 28"x 72". I will be building out spans between them that are also wet ready making for a total of 25' linear feet of wrap around wet side space. The ceilings are nice too at a little over 8.5' feet.

Basically this came about after I sought to secure long term darkroom space in Aspen where I lived for 19 years and did not find anything viable after several years of looking. So in January, my wife and I decided to move out of our condo about 20 miles out of town and bought a large home that has this space in it so I can work properly and teach workshops. We just had our dirt driveway covered in recycled asphalt and added 4 parking spots just for this purpose. We also have a spare room for guests, possible artist in residency and workshop participants. Perched high above the valley floor, our views of the Rockies are truly spectacular and will be inspiring to those who attend workshops. The access we have to subject matter of all kinds is pretty remarkable too...people are really going to enjoy this!

So while not huge, my darkroom will be plenty big for my own purposes and small workshops of not more than 6 people.

It's good to hear your school is building out a new space, we all help keep this craft viable and breaking new ground. Good building, good dark and good light to you sir!
 
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A quick way to see if your safelights might be a problem without going through tests is to take a cd/dvd and look at the reflection of the light off of it at an acute angle. You will see whatever secondary colors are coming off the lights. If it is totally red without any yellow or green, then do a safelight test.

My safelight these days is a red spiral party light covered with photoloth. Photolith can be had easily on Ebay and it isn't very expensive. I'd pass on the Rosco gels personally. They aren't meant to be perfect with transmission since that is not what they are designed for. I found that I had to use two layers of Rosco gels back when I tried them. One wasn't enough, and even with two it wasn't totally safe.

Hope that helps someone.
 

That sounds incredible Dan! I haven't been frequenting apug much recently so have missed your progress reports. I'm happy you've found what you were looking for. I envy the space you have coming from my 10'X10' darkroom! Best of luck getting the space all decked out.
 

I will be losing the darkroom space/office I have at school when we move to our new facility in the fall and am extremely jealous of what you have there. I will be forced to move into a tiny basement bathroom that the size of a postage stamp.
 
zkascak said:
I will be losing the darkroom space/office I have at school when we move to our new facility in the fall and am extremely jealous of what you have there. I will be forced to move into a tiny basement bathroom that the size of a postage stamp.
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I had a no plumbing ski locker turned dark closet of about 15 usable square feet from 2012 on, it was fun and hell at the same time and I managed to easily do 16x20's using a home made tray stacker and even 20x24's in Jobo 3063 drums. It was not perfect but it made me innovate within those limits and be 101% sure a real darkroom was what I wanted.

It took over ten years for me to finally arrive at what I am building now so instead of it appearing like the usual meth lab or cold war era morgue, the place is going to be a work of art in which to make art. And a big part of that will be to at first share this passion with who ever wants to make the trek to this magical lab at 7,300 feet in the heart of the Rockies, so come on out and hole up in the guest room and take a load off. Eventually I intend to do workshops in addition to move from my full time work as a commercial shooter to the making and selling of fine silver gel prints, but that will take a couple years after the place is done.

I expect the digs to be up and running around Fall and with three LPL4550 XLG / VCCE enlargers to round out the dry side, this darkroom will pretty capable. The westside will feature both a 16x20 and 20x24 print washer, either Patterson or SS tanks and Hewes reels or simply use the Jobo CPP3 from 35mm up to 4x5.

Due to my clashing with a particular person regarding how best to promote the health of film, I am limiting my posting on here quite a bit but I just wanted to extend a personal invitation to you once this fun house is ready to roll.

Keep the faith man, it is worth it.

 
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