Zone VI Enlargers w/VC heads and timers Advice Please

[mshchem]

I picked up two Zone VI type two chassis(s) today. 5x7 and 8x10. Both seem to be in great shape. Both have VC coldlight heads. They have the little green ready light on front next to the power switch. No separate power supply. Have the funky alphabet dials for the soft and hard. I'm guessing these are from early Calumet era, but not really sure. Lights work great with the Zone VI timer that came with them.

Timer has a dry down dial, 3 dials for time, 1st seems to be 1 to 9 seconds, 2nd dial seems to be for 10 to 90 seconds. 3rd dial I didn't fiddle with.

The beeper beeps every 6 seconds don't really understand that??

I have a manual I found for the enlargers and the heads, but I'm looking for a manual or instructions on the timer.

I got both enlargers, a couple lens boards, carrier for the 8x10 and a 6x7. Paid 200 bucks for the lot, drove 180 miles round trip. The 8x10 is what I really want to get going as I have nice Beseler 4x5 stuff too.

Any observations, advice, insights would be welcome
Thanks, Mike

 

[mike c]

Greeat Deal, I had a 4x5 zone V mod one and used just the single grid not VC. The timer was the compensating type, and on mine that third dial was light intensity for the light grid, also had the dry down. Great timer, wish I still had it but sold it with the enlarger.

 

[mshchem]

OK, I'm starting to get a clue here. The thing beeps faster with more light, duh. So I switched it on let it warm up in focus mode a bit to get both tubes warm. If I have both lamps set to max on the VC controller. Then with, dial three (farthest to the left) set to 1. Dial two set to zero, and dial 1 set to zero, the lamp stays lit for around ten seconds beeping about once a second.

So this means? That if I get a good print with the dial set to say 12.3 with contrast soft set at D, I will get a similar Lux or amount of light with both dials set to D, it's just the exposure time will vary? If this is the case I'm pumped. The timer is an integrator? Only when it gets so many "units" of light then it shuts off?

Now I'm starting to get this RH Vario, Metrolux...... thing.
Still this thing seems awfully temperature sensitive to me. When it is cold the Hard (blue) light flickers at max power. Once it's warm seems OK.

The light intensity dial on the timer has no effect on the VC head. And only the Focus switch on the contrast control box lights up both tubes to full power. The focus switch on the timer just turns on the head to where you have the contrast dials set.
Best Mike

 

[mike c]

Mike, yours could be a little different as it is a 2 lite grids, mine was a single lite grid and its been years since I sold it so maybe a getting a manual for it would help more than I could.

 

[john_s]

I have some Zone VI instructions scanned. Send me a PM and I can email them to you.