Topic: paterson enlarger help... again

[Thom Stone]

man I'm such an enlarger novice.

I have had a paterson pcs1000 enlarger for a while now £4 from my local market. it has been sitting collecting dust but I really fancy getting set up to do some printing next week. I was at the same market today and picked up the timer for the same enlarger for £7 (I know extortion ;-) and after having a gander at both today, I'm a little stumped as to how to attach it.

I would assume a timer would simply go intercept the power and essentially act like a slightly more sophisticated switch... but after taking apart the transformer housing and having a head scratch.. I'm still a little stumped. I get the feeling I am missing some sort of junction box so that you can just plug the enlarger into a socket and then hook up the timer...


2012-07-07 12.34.36 by Thomo_Stoneo, on Flickr
heres the timer itself, It has two wires coming out of it, one is clearly a power wire with blue and brown but the other is a small black and white cable with little connectors on the ends...


2012-07-07 12.35.21 by Thomo_Stoneo, on Flickr

here are the two cables close up.


2012-07-07 12.35.39 by Thomo_Stoneo, on Flickr

here is the transformer for the enlarger

I don't suppose its as complicated as I'm making it, I'm probably missing something obvious.


btw that thing they are all sitting on is my new/ old light box that I just picked up today from the same market for £8... I changed the fuse in the plug and it didn't work so I suspect its just the bulbs, when I get it open I will order some.


anyway thanks for any help in advance, I suspect francois may be able to pitch in on this one.
 

[Francois]

OK, here are some technical details I could find:
The Paterson PCS 1000 enlarger was manufactured by Phillips. It uses a fluorescent light source and thus needs a ballast to work.
Ballasts always work about the same way: The two blue wires should go to the two connectors on one end of the tube. The two brown ones to the other end.

But to make sure, could you draw up what the wires are and where they come from?
Just a sketch in Microsoft Paint or Word would be good enough... even a napkin would do.

[Harvey]

Hi Thom,
Bear with me on this one, I may be way wide of the mark. I  have the Paterson 2500 which had the PCS150 3-colour head with it. The timer is similar but with the addition of controls for the 3-colours. The only connections are mains in to the timer and timer lead out to the enlarger (lamp housing). There is no seperate transformer/ballast so I guess this is built into the timer control.
I have the instructions for mine but there is no reference to other models.

Shaun

[Francois]

I think the original transfo might have burned out and the previous owner replaced it with a regular ballast.

[mickld]

I'm in the same boat! I bought a timer off eBay but was stumped as to how to wire it up. Plus I lack the skill/courage to dismantle and rewire electrical stuff. In the end I started using a free metronome app on my iPhone and leave it running all the time while I'm in the darkroom. This way I just count off the seconds as and when I need to time anything. Obviously I don't have sub-second accuracy, but it works so well for me that I haven't bothered to tackle the wiring challenge.

Might be a way for you to get started this weekend while you figure out the wiring.

[Thom Stone]

Sorry for not checking back sooner, been crazy busy with work.

In previous darkroom sessions I have indeed used a stopwatch, I have an old style wind up darkroom stop watch with little glow in the dark hands and numbers, that has served me well but It would be so nice to be able to just hit a button (I know... kind of not what film photography is all about but I think It would help with my print quality and consistency)

as for a diagram, its fairly simple but I will just draw one out on paint now.

[Thom Stone]

I do wish there was more info on this enlarger online.. I would have thought there may be some documentation somewhere for a paterson enlarger! I do have a sneaking suspiscion that there is a missing component.. some sort of junction box that the power plug from the enlarger head plugs into

[Harvey]

Thom, the Paterson PCS series appear to have been sold under the Philips name as well. A bit of a search throws up instruction manuals available from oldtimer cameras. Not cheap, actually a lot more than I would have expected but could be a step forward.

Shaun

[Francois]

Well, if you look inside the enlarger's head, if I'm not mistaken, there is a mechanical shutter that is probably powered by a solenoid. On everything I found mentioning the Phillips enlargers, they mention it. From what I can make out, the light stayed on either all the time or there was a system with a delay to make sure the bulb was at full power before exposing the paper...

Even if it's missing parts or was modified, don't worry about it. It's not the first time I jury rig something

[Mike (happyforest)]

Have you tried contacting Paterson?

Paterson Photographic Limited
2 Malthouse Road,
Tipton,
West Midlands.
DY4 9AE.

Telephone: 0121 520 4830
Fax: 0121 520 4831

Email: sales@patersonphotog.plus.com
Technical Help: roger@patersonphotographic.co.uk

Mike