No. That's a purple light bulb with just barely enough near-UV to make white things light up a little. Just use the blacklight linear fluorescent tubes people told you about in the other thread. I even included part numbers for you there.
Thanks, Bert. That would be easiest, but those are selling for significantly more than US$10 on eBay. More like US$80-120.Or you just buy a second hand facial tanning machine (don't know what these are called inn english??) for $10 and make a small wooden box to carry it - with the bulbs facing down. These machines come in several sizes.
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Adam, with this kind of bulb you won’t be able to properly expose your work.
Theses bulbs are made for ambiance, there is not much UV wavelength at the out.
You live in SF right ? - So I think the sun is your cheapest option to begin with cyanotype.
After that, TheToadMen gave you a good tip above.
I worried about the same before building mine (12x16 box with 18 bulbs) but from my tests on a 11x14 frame I found very little spatial variation. I have not used it for cyanotypes or for any of the other processes mentioned - so far only for Centennial POP and a little bit of salt prints. The typical exposures have been 20-25 minutes to achieve the Dmax. It does get hot like hell, probably putting that many bulbs in the small space was an overkill. Might need an exhaust fan if I ever want to do more than a couple exposures in a day. If I ever built a bigger one, I would look into building with LED's like this one that presumably should be cooler than CFL's:The light output of a spiral CFC is not nearly as even as that of a linear (tube) fluorescent. This makes them unsuitable for large prints.
... It does get hot like hell, probably putting that many bulbs in the small space was an overkill. Might need an exhaust fan if I ever want to do more than a couple exposures in a day....
Yep. I figured out it takes some time to stabilize the output, so I do a pre-exposure warm-up of 10 mins. As per the LEDs, I do realize there are some complications like the spectral output and the longevity. I am not there yet, but it looks much easier and cheaper to build (if you can solder) and cooler to run. I am good with what I have for now. Can't imagine going above 11x14 in the near (or intermediate) future.CFLs mounted "socket up" produce uneven light for the first few minutes after startup. With long exposures, this isn't such a problem as the illumation evens as the bulbs heat up.
As you mention, they do get hot - each bulb has it's own ballast crammed inside the screw base, where as tubular fluorescent bulbs have external ballasts that run much cooler. Note regarding UV leds: read the specs very carefully - the cheap ones on Ebay, although called "UV" actually have very poor output in the 360 nm range.
I bought some black light tubes for my light box and when I made my exposure and developed the cyanotype in water, the whole image washed off. I use Corral Life Actinic tubes and they work well...
I picked up a facial tanning machine. I plan to do tests, but does anyone have suggestions for light-to-paper distance and exposure times?
If the image develops and washes off, that is often caused by the chemicals drying on top on the paper instead of the chemicals soaking a little into the paper before drying.
Thanks, Vaughn. The unit I bought looks like the one Bert posted in post #3, above. I'll start with 12" and go from there. And I'll make up some test strips, too. I was using 3-4 min in full winter sun, so I'll start at five and go up from there. And I'll monitor the temp, too.I am assuming some sort of built-in reflector, so getting real close probably will have no advantage over pulling back a little. Probably close to what the instructions recommend for faces...maybe a little closer...12" to 16"? And I still suggest a small desk fan to blow air across the glass.
Exposure time -- do a quick test for your miminum exposure time to get a black through the film rebate. That will be your ballpark time for most of your work (with that paper/process, anyway). Can't really guess at a starting time...5 minute intervals?
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