Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Richard Knoppow wrote:

Thanks, and to everyone who suggested something. I went to another
lighting
store today and found a bunch of GE 15 watt bulbs (made in Hungary).I bought
six, so I am set for a long time.

I'm still thinking about the other possibilities as I need more safe lights,
and I doubt that there are more Beehive lamps around (here).
_____
Geoff,

Got my Thunderbird newsreader working again on Mac OS X after a month or
more switching from OpenBSD.

I noted your question about safe lights. Someone suggested a regular
triac based light dimmer. That would work fine as they can usually
handle 600 Watts.

I have used with great success a single diode to run several safe lights
on half power by inserting a simple and cheap silicon diode in the line.
The diode i picked was the 1N4004. It is small and can be hidden in
the standard plug, or in one of those Bakelite in-line rocker switches.
Current limitation is 1 Amp, so this means that you can drive up to
220 Watts worth of safe lights with one diode. This comes to about five
40 Watt bulbs. I use this simple trick to dim the safe lights while
focusing the enlarger. I use amber dome filters on my lights.

For specifications of diodes see
http://www.diodes.com/datasheets/ds28002.pdf. I have no idea how
easy/difficult it is to buy these diodes in Jerusalem.

Regards / John

contrex_nospam at shaw dot ca