Omega D5 Alignment adjustments

[Jerry Cunningham]

I am considering buying a D5 but I have yet to see one in the flesh. I own a classic D2 and the film stage is easily adjustable but the lens stage has no apparent means of adjustment. The alignment manual says that the lens stage will be correct if the negative stage is correct. However, I have found that not to be true in practice. Does the D5 have adjustments for the negative stage and the lens stage. In fact, how easily is the D5 adjusted with a good laser tool? Thanks for any insight.
Jerry

 

[pelerin]

I am considering buying a D5 but I have yet to see one in the flesh. I own a classic D2 and the film stage is easily adjustable but the lens stage has no apparent means of adjustment. The alignment manual says that the lens stage will be correct if the negative stage is correct. However, I have found that not to be true in practice. Does the D5 have adjustments for the negative stage and the lens stage. In fact, how easily is the D5 adjusted with a good laser tool? Thanks for any insight.
Jerry

Hi,
If you look closely at the axle that supports the rear of the carriage on your D2 you will find a small hole in the axle. Loosen the two bolts that pass through the sides of the carriage and thread into the axle. Insert a small tool in the hole and rotate the axle. You will find the axle has been drilled so that the bolts provide an eccentric pivot and rotating the axle swings the lens stage in and out relative to the column of the enlarger. The strip bearing (aluminum bar that the focus rails ride in) has sufficient "slop" to adjust the rails left to right in relation to the column. It is therefore quite possible to adjust the lens stage for accurate alignment. One can then adjust the negative stage and both stages will be in alignment.
Celac.

 

[Jerry Thirsty]

You can get a .pdf of the manual here:

http://www.legacy-photo.com/pdf/equipment/enlargers/omega/ome_d3d5.pdf

The negative stage just has a screw at each corner that you can loosen to move that particular corner up or down. I'm not quite sure how or if you can align the lens stage.

 

[L Gebhardt]

I just moved my original D5 and setup another one. I needed to align both of them as the lens stage was severely out of alignment on the new one. Searched around outside of apug and found a helpful answer at the large format forum. Last time I set this up I ended up shimming the enlarger mount as I couldn't figure out the lens alignment. This proper procedure works much better. Using the laser I now have everything perfectly aligned in less than half an hour on two enlargers (one color and one black and white).

 

[ic-racer]

I made these secondary adjustable baseboards for my D5500s. The baseboards have set-screw adjustments on the 4 corners to get the baseboard parallel to the non-adjustable negative stage. The lens is then aligned to the baseboard as there is no way to directly align the lens to the negative stage using my laser.

 

[Arvee]

ic-racer: clever solution!!

 

[Sirius Glass]

You can get a .pdf of the manual here:

http://www.legacy-photo.com/pdf/equipment/enlargers/omega/ome_d3d5.pdf

The negative stage just has a screw at each corner that you can loosen to move that particular corner up or down. I'm not quite sure how or if you can align the lens stage.

Got an error. Manual was not found. Suggestions?

Steve

 

[Lee L]

Got an error. Manual was not found. Suggestions?

Steve

This thread was awakened from a long sleep. That post is nearly three years old. I searched for the filename with google today and came up with all dead links.

Lee

 

[ic-racer]

http://www.darkroompro.com/pdf/enlargers/omega_serv_man.pdf
http://www.darkroompro.com/pdf/enlargers/omega_d3d5.pdf

 

[Lee L]

Thanks Dale. Nice find. I didn't think to search on that variation.

Lee