How do you deal with light leaks from Omega D2?

[tkamiya]

I have some foam tape. I'll try that all around bottom of the condenser. Thank you.

[artonpaper]

I use that spongy with the peel of backing. I think its insulation tape. I taped so it hangs down a bit from the head and compresses against the negative carrier when the head is lowered in position.

[Bill Burk]

Another very simple mitigation for the head/carrier interface is to go a hobby shop and get a sheet of adhesive-backed black felt. (It's not real felt these days, but just as good for this use.) Then use your trimmer to cut a long strip about 1/8th inch wide. Take that strip and stick it all the way around the underside rim of the condenser housing (this is also where the round cold light cans reside).

The effect is that when you lower the head directly onto the carrier top, the felt seals up the slightly imperfect fit very effectively. On my D5XL there is absolutely no leakage from this location. And a nice side effect is that if you're equipment-anal like me, the felt prevents any marking up of your nice clean carrier tops, especially if they're white enameled.

And again for the inverse problem, I've used this same felt to seal up the interface between the camera body and bellows mounting frame on my 8x10 (a like-new restored Calumet C1). Had light leaks before. Has absolutely none now.

Ken

Thanks Tkamiya for asking and Ken this sounds like a good idea.

When I used my Omegalite, there was a spongy foam interface between lamphead and negative carrier. I modified this sticky foam by covering it with some thin black 1.1 silnylon (leftover from some DIY backpacking gear projects).

But I recently switched to an Aristo Grid lamphead which uses a traditional condenser housing. I noticed that greenish light spilling out pretty dramatically... So I am looking for this same idea. Didn't want to use "felt" because I didn't want dust. But this is exactly what I was thinking would be required.

[Ken Nadvornick]

From my own experience another nice side effect of the fake felt is no dust.

Since the fibers themselves are some sort of plastic, they don't fray and break off. And because they are affixed in a strip compressed directly between the condenser and carrier, they are completely covered when the condenser is in the lowered position, which is how I keep it when not in use to keep airborne dust out of the bellows. Thus they gather no dust themselves.

And finally, because they are in a compressed state during all of the downtime, the adhesive stays firmly attached to the bottom ridge of the condenser housing. Yet because they're plastic, when you do lift the head they spring right back up. And I'm also pretty anal regarding dust in my darkroom, as I routinely use double-glass AN negative carriers for optimum sharpness.

I did try the adhesive weather stripping. But even using the thinnest I could find it still wedged the cold light diffuser up too far up from the negative. Then I tried attaching the stripping all the way around the outside of the condenser, with only a thin portion protruding below the bottom to act as a seal. But the adhesive, being subject to a constant lateral (vertical) force relative to the sticky surface plane, constantly popped off. And the new, larger circumference was too large for my standard carriers, which the condenser housing just barely covers.

Ken

[jnanian]

i sometimes put glass plates in my durst 601 head ... without a negative carrier and light spills and leaks everywhere
what i ended up doing was taking a piece of cloth and taping it above and below where the light is leaking.
cheap and easy ...
have fun !
john