My Dichro 45s enlarger head died a few months back so I was using a cold light head in its place. I had to use under the lens graded filters since there was no control for the color of light when using multigrade papers. I then found on ebay, for a somewhat reasonable price, a full Ilford Multigrade 500 system including power supply, controller, head, and even the foot switch. Finding a working one is a bit of a challenge since these are now over 30 years old. The unique feature of the multigrade head is that it uses 2 separate bulbs for light output of blue and green. The original controller would allow the user to select grades 0-5 in 1/2 stops and to adjust time. This is perfect for the way I work because I would tend to make one exposure using grade 0 and another using a higher grade for split grade printing.

I received the system and realized it was set up for the durst enlargers. The brackets would not fit my Beseler enlarger. So I set out to build a custom mounting bracket out of 1/4 inch plywood and a ring from an old cold light head. It took me several hours of planing and shaping to get it to sit securely on the Beseler 45 MX enlarger but I got it mounted and it was fairly stable. Then as I was testing things the controller started going bad and eventually only 1/2 of it would work. This system is no good without a controller.

I looked around on the auction sites and saw some old controllers available but also found a newer model from RH Designs which was made for the Ilford 500 system, the Analyzer Pro 500. It has a probe that measure the different areas of a projected negative and displays a suggested grade and time. It also displays the measured areas against a stepped gray scale so you can expand or contract the grade and get a visual reference of your changes. The probe also acts as an under enlarger densitometer and can provide relative log differences in density.

So after a month of shipping and fiddling I got everything hooked up and ran some initial tests to see my alignment and to look for issues. Well the first issue was that at 600 watts my exposure times would be incredibly short. Also, for some odd reason there was a shadow all the way around the frame of the negative holder that would impact edge printing. I did some more research and found that the Beseler uses a different mixing box that protrudes below the head and would nearly touch the negative carrier. My head was sitting about an inch and a half too high. So I borrowed the diffuser from the dead Dicro head and put it into the ring such that I now had 2 diffuse materials to reduce the light output and the lower one to distribute the light closer to the negative. I need to eventually find the deeper mixing boxes and remedy this issue to be more in keeping with the head’s design.

I think I have most of the bugs worked out, but still need to seal up some light leaks before use. Hopefully this weekend I can get back to printing. I am hoping the aging power supply and head do not give out for a few years so I can be confident of the money invested in this system. Otherwise I’m pulling out my old Federal enlarger which has no fancy features. Its a Bulb, negative stage, and lens and any timer will work with it.