Which Lamp for Ilford 500H

[Absinthe]

In my 500H there is a working ELH (300 watts), and a blown ENH(250 watts) or perhaps that is backwards.

In the download manual I see online I see they suggest ESD (150 watts)

I am leaning towards just putting the ESD's in there, but obviously at some point someone thought it was a good idea to put the higher wattage bulbs in there, any ideas?

 

[Marco B]

In my 500H there is a working ELH (300 watts), and a blown ENH(250 watts) or perhaps that is backwards.

In the download manual I see online I see they suggest ESD (150 watts)

I am leaning towards just putting the ESD's in there, but obviously at some point someone thought it was a good idea to put the higher wattage bulbs in there, any ideas?

Actually, I have had this discussion before in another thread I started. Ilford never really properly documented this, but it seems there are two kind of models or possible setups of the 500H head.

You are right the manual says 2 x 150W. However, it seems the whole setup CAN support also 2 x 300 W. Someone pointed out to me that in case of 300W lamps, the 500H only needs to carry two extra "head shields" in front of the lamps to protect the plastic front cover from melting. I have these... They are white painted metal plates clipped to the exhaust tubes above the lamps. You should see them immediately when you open the front cover, the lamps are hidden behind them.

If you have them, you should be fine carrying the stronger 300W bulbs.

My 500H head carries two General Electric ELH 300W/120V lamps.

It uses the Ilfospeed Multigrade 500S power supply, that actually says "400W" on the back, suggesting it would not be able to supply two 300W lamps. However, obviously it does, and I have never had a fuse break, nor smelt any smoke coming from it, or felt overheating when touching it, so it should be OK.

I think the power supply is seriously underrated and Ilford decided to allow for 2 x 300W by adding the heat shields...

 

[Absinthe]

Hmmmm, so the presence of the heat shield suggests that it should be using 300 watts.. What if, like me, you merely have a single heat shield

This was property of the Navy and was bought surplus from governemnt auction by an ebay jobber and that's where I got it. I have gone through some contortions to get the control panel, and loght boxes as it stands.

It has 2 bulbs in it presently one being a 250 watt and the other being the 300. One of them works and the other is blown as I explained.

So is there any real reason to use 600 watts in an enlarger?

 

[Absinthe]

Ok, well let's see what happens when we trust the manual, I just ordered 4 from


http://www.1000bulbs.com/stage/Enla...m=shopping+site&utm_campaign=Froogle+datafeed

So far they seemed pretty reasonable, I will let you all know how it goes.

 

[Marco B]

Ok, well let's see what happens when we trust the manual, I just ordered 4 from


http://www.1000bulbs.com/stage/Enla...m=shopping+site&utm_campaign=Froogle+datafeed

So far they seemed pretty reasonable, I will let you all know how it goes.

You should be fine, I just suspect some longer exposure time, maybe even doubled, as the light output is halved.

The high wattage of the bulbs compared to condenser enlargers does have a reason though: since this 500H uses a "diffuser" box (that guarantees a very even lighting), it MUST have a considerable light output of the lamps. There is simply much more light lost than in a condenser enlarger.

 

[Marco B]

Hmmmm, so the presence of the heat shield suggests that it should be using 300 watts.. What if, like me, you merely have a single heat shield

And of course you might try to create such a heat shield yourself and pop in 300 W bulbs if the light output fails to live up to your expectations with the 150 W ones... shouldn't be too difficult based on the simple design and the example you have.

 

[kapro]

My 500H head carries two General Electric ELH 300W/120V lamps as well

 

[youngrichard]

500H Lamps

FWIIW; I have 2 Ilford 500 set ups on 2 different enlargers. Both 500S power supplies say 600W rating on the back, and inside the door on the front of each 500H is a label saying "Use only 300W lamps".
There are no heat shields though I have seen them elsewhere. But I am puzzled by melting plastic; the doors on my 500H's are metal.
Richard

 

[Marco B]

FWIIW; I have 2 Ilford 500 set ups on 2 different enlargers. Both 500S power supplies say 600W rating on the back, and inside the door on the front of each 500H is a label saying "Use only 300W lamps".
There are no heat shields though I have seen them elsewhere. But I am puzzled by melting plastic; the doors on my 500H's are metal.
Richard

Well, you're right , I though it was plastic, but the front cover is metal... Only the side panels are plastic on the outside. The heatshields probably help in reducing in the outside temperature of the metal front cover, although not strictly necessary than.

Actually, yours might be the most "modern" version, since it uses a power supply that correctly displays 600W (well, even though mine doesn't, I am sure it handles it well and may actually be technically 100% similar to yours, as the fuse has never broken, nor felt the supply anything more than slightly warm).