What's all this "Stuff" on my Beseler 4x5

[eric]

I'm been using the Beseler for a while now. I've used the newer black ones before in lab may years ago so my memory is messed up from all the fixer and toner.

I have a cold light plugged into the socket and the on/off plug plugged into my timer. But what are A, B, and C do? Also, there's a dangling toggle switch that don't do anything.

The guy I bought it from was old and can't remember either. But it works. Just wanted to know for future reference what those things are. I think it has to do with the regular light head.

 

[Nick Zentena]

A is a resistrol -) I think that can control your light intensity. By varying the voltage. A dimmer switch?

C is the transformer for the light source. I guess it has a colour head?

B should be the place you plug in the light source.

At least going by my Beseler. Best to wait fo somebody with the same model -)

 

[Photo Engineer]

On my old AF Beselers, that black box (C) was the motor control for raising and lowering the entire head, along with auto focusing the lens. There was a shaft running left into a box that hooked into a gear that the motor used.

You could do this manually as well.

The switch on the middle right was used to raise or lower the head on these automatic models. There were two projecting guards on the right where you see the scale, and they turned the switch off when you reached the top or bottom of the track so that no damage was done.

An eccentric cam on the left of the enlarger with a wheel caused the bellows to move and auto focus as the head went up and down.

Of course, I have seen so many models, what I describe may be a mile away from what you have.

The ones I describe were top-of-the-line in the 60s both in general use in the USAF and in particular at Cape Canaveral in the Still Photo Division.

PE

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

A: is the previously noted Resistrol - a device for varying the intensity of the lamp head by adjusting the voltage flowing to it (a fancy rheostat) so you can adjust exposure times (if you need to slow down a printing time for burning/dodging purposes). It is really only useful when working with black-and-white on a condenser head. As pictured, it is currently plugged into itself, so it is not doing anything.

When you wanted to use the resistrol, you'd plug it in to B, and then run the lamphouse through the resistrol. The dangling switch operates the current running through B, so it seems to do nothing because you're not using B.

C: is a transformer, but for what I don't know. I would have thought it was the voltage stabilizer for your cold light head, but it may have nothing to do with that.

 

[vet173]

There is a voltmeter that plugs into the top of the resisrtol. It was best used to maintain a constant voltage when printing color which is more sensitive to line changes. When every stove in town is cooking dinner, do the same and print later. If the mystical black box has the 24 volt output going to the lamphouse, then plug hanging in front that comes out of it plugs into B. If you want to use resistrol take the short plug from the side and plug it into B, plug lamphouse into socket on the side. Toggle switch was probebly used by someone using a metronome. I would assume timer plugs into there. This one is earlier than mine.