Zone VI Stabilizer - what's inside?

[Steve Goldstein]

Has anyone ever reverse-engineered one of these? I have and use one, but the documentation says it's limited to 4x5 heads and smaller. I have a nice Aristo D57 and would like to build an adapter for it for my Beseler 45MX, but I don't want to smoke the stabilizer in the process. If it's just some simple low-level electronics that could be added into the D57's power supply, I can handle it (I'm an electrical engineer by day, but ICs, not power electronics).

Yes, I know I should just buy a compensating timer rather than mucking around inside....

 

[EdSawyer]

post pics of the internals and we can likely reverse engineer it here online. The only limit I could imagine on it would be total wattage, most likely.

 

[Steve Goldstein]

It's riveted together. I'm reluctant to open a perfectly good working unit on the very remote chance that some piece of unobtanium will be damaged....

 

[ic-racer]

If it is the stabilizer with the light sensor, I don't think its any low level electronics. Now if your D57 has a thermostatic heater circuit in it, THAT is low level electronics and you should be able to get pretty good results with it once it heats up.

 

[Richard T Ritter]

The stabilizer will not handle the D57 light. I will burn it out.

 

[Steve Goldstein]

That's why I'm interested. I'd like to build a higher-power version of the stabilizer for the D57, if it's not too complex. Alternatively, I can buy/build a compensating timer to deal with the light variation with time and temperature. The timer may well be the easier solution.

 

[Richard T Ritter]

Do to the need to handle higher power requirements of the bigger cold lights the comp timer was designed it was an easier and better way.

 

[john_s]

The compensating timer made by RH Designs (Stop Clock Vario) uses the same sensor as Zone VI as far as I know and it's a joy to use.