Another thing I have sometimes done is to bypass all the fancy solid state feedback controls and simply hard wire the system. The main problem with the Starlight was overheating. They were completely aware of it. It was built back when there was ample demand for very powerful colorheads that could punch big slow Cibachrome prints. I never cared for the salt-and-peppery effect of the Chromira printers, though it's far less obnoxious than the streaking people often got back then with big laser printers. I could have had one cheap (5% the original price), and a very nice drum scanner for free, but digital
I ain't. In that case, it wasn't cheap because ZBE defaulted on service, but because Kodak did on their own early digital device contracts, which bankrupted the most active lab in town. He was still expected to make payments to Kodak for expensive gear they refused to honor their own service contract on. That's the whole problem with rushing to be first in line.
Competitive equipment hits the market before yours is even paid off; and you have to replace it on a regular basis anyway. Kodak wanted $40,000 a yr just for the service contract, paid in advance. Some of my enlargers are fifty years old, and
they'll be working perfectly another fifty. And they produce color better than any digital device. Yeah, someday the right paper might be gone; but I won't be around forever either.
