Darkroom Construction Update: Power and Lighting

As some of you know, I've been installing a darkroom in my basement this summer, working at an appropriately leisurely pace. The goal is a fine print portfolio from all the 35mm shooting I did between 1980 and 2000. For earlier installments in this series, please click on "Mike's Darkroom" under the "Categories" header in the right-hand sidebar.

In this update: power and lighting. As usual you can click on any of the images to open larger versions.

This first picture shows two things. First, the wet-side power strip. It's overkill: I don't need 16 outlets, and I don't need them spaced so close together. This will be to power GraLab timers and whatever else I might need on the wet side. It's just plugged into an outlet behind the wet-side wall. The electrical load on this will be very light, despite the plethora of outlets.

This picture also shows the switches for the lighting. The switch plate is placed high, above the shelf, to keep it well away from the wet. The switch on the left is for the viewing lights and the one on the right for the safelights.

The power strip for the dry side. Again, to have all these outlets is overkill, but I happened to be able to get these two power strips cheaply. The electrical load on this side will be very light, too, basically just an enlarger and a timer. At least I don't have to worry about having an outlet just where I want it.

One of the most important features of a darkroom, in my opinion: the print viewing lights. Two large cans on a 4-foot track. This is for looking at and evaluating wet prints just out of the fixer. The final tray in the lineup will hold plain water, with a heavy sheet of 1/4" glass angled against the wall. Newly made prints are slapped on the glass and squeegeed to get the excess water off, then studied to see what the next step will be. (Another important feature of this area is a comfortable bar stool.) The two viewing lights are set up just like a copystand, equidistant from where the prints will be and at 45-degree angles to it.

The only wild card here is the distance. I guessed. This is designed for two 60-watt incandescent bulbs, and that might turn out to be a tad too bright. If that's the case, I'll install a dimmer switch for the viewing lights. Having the proper illumination level in the darkroom for evaluating prints is crucial; absolutely crucial. Too bright and your prints will be consistently too dark, with blocked shadows (they'll look good under airplane landing lights, at least, or 500-watt spots), and too dim and your prints will be consistently too light, with a maximum black that is really only a dark gray (although maybe this will be necessary in the future, given the crappy low-level illumination currently fashionable in museums).

Note that in the above picture you can see one of the safelight cans at the far left.

Here are the safelights, shown turned on. The fixture is just a short 2-foot track with two cans. I've rigged the right-hand can with an extender inside it so that bulb protrudes somewhat. The idea is to give a mix of direct and reflected safelight. The safelights are red Festival LEDs.

Is Lightroom 3 and a copy of The Lightroom 3 Book starting to seem like a simple, cheap solution yet? :-)

Another view of the safelights. (You remember the incompletely masked window, which I did while puttering around late one night as I waited for the paint on the floor to dry; I haven't masked the windows or done the "light-tighting" yet.)

The purpose of the can on the left is to reflect off the far wall—more for ambience than useful illumination. I learned this trick from a darkroom I saw once that was a long, skinny room. The darkroom was at one end and the other end was a carpeted exhibition area, with framed prints on the wall. That end of the room was of course lit with white lights for viewing the pictures, but it also was flooded with very bright safelighting for when the darkroom end was in operation. The light level at the darkroom end was actually very low, but the presence of the "bright" half of the room was soothing and pleasant, and made it seem less like you were stuck in the dark. The safelight bounced against the far wall is my attempt to recreate that effect.

A final view of the safelight fixture, with the lights turned off. The other thing I had the electrician do was to relocate the main white light socket (bottom left in this view) to put it farther out into the room, so that it wouldn't interfere with the viewing lights. All these fixtures are quite close together. Incidentally, the only reason there's a chain coming from the left hand safelight can is that that's the kind of extender I happened to have on hand when I was mucking about trying to get the safelights right.

Final bill for all this, about $260 for the electrician and a total of about $190 for all the fixtures, including the two LED safelights, which were quite expensive but can be expected to last effectively forever.

This is the last refinement that's been added since the last update. You recall I used half of a $69 wire shelving unit to hold up the enlarger table (as seen in the second picture of this post). That left me with the other half, which fortunately just barely fit under the wet side counter (didn't plan that, because I didn't think of it before the wet side construction was done). So I got some dividers ($9 each) for tray storage.

Coming next: plumbing. (Got to remember to call the plumber today....)

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Roger Bradbury: "Well, once an electrician always an electrician, so I've been waiting for this bit. Looks good.

"I have to agree that you can't have too many sockets. I do like the idea of a viewing station. Doesn't the ideal light level there partly depend on the overall level under safelights, so that you don't squint too much? I suspect that the dimmer switch is the way to go.

"I presume that the lights and power are all dobbed into the local circuits in the basement. My first darkroom was in a shed with power and lighting fed from the household lighting circuit. (This was before I became an electrician) It wasn't too bad until I turned on the second 1000 Watt bar of the electric fire, trying to get the shed up to 20 Celcius. There was a bang as the lights and safelight went off, and suddenly everyone in the house was shouting my name...."

Comments

[David Dyer-Bennet]

That kind of power strip is usually quite expensive, so I haven't used them myself; but I would have if I got a really good deal! They're very nice, having an outlet right where you need it in places like that is good. (In fact those look a cut above the ones I've found too expensive to use.)

I hope the outlet the wet side strip, at least, plugs into has a GFCI on it.

Lightroom plus Photoshop plus a powerful computer plus at least an Epson 2880 printer (to do B&W well). Plus a good scanner. Storage disks plus backup disks. Ink plus paper is generally more expensive than photo paper plus chemistry (though the waste ratio may be very different).

But besides, you wanted a darkroom.

And, this way, you've postponed having to come to grips with those old images for months! :-)

[Christer Almqvist]

Looks fine Mike, but I think you will find the viewing lights too strong.

I took me several attempts to get the darkroom viewing light so that the enlargements _viewed with the eyes adapted to the relative darkness in the darkroom_ looked the same to me in the darkroom as they would later look when viewed at full light outside the darkroom. It was well worth the effort to obtain this goal.

I wish I had as many sockets in my darkroom as you have. Seriously!

[Jamie Pillers]

Mike,
You've forgotten a serious electric load... the high-end audio system! How are you going to be able to spend hours down there in the basement without the lps, cds, turntable, cd player, speakers, amps...? :-)

[Steve G., Mendocino]

Mike:

Looking good, man. A couple of thoughts on the viewing lights - which are a great idea. Fiddling with the actual wattage of the bulbs is better than a dimmer switch, which will shift the color temp of the bulbs a bit warmer and will induce a bit of filament hum - which makes me nutz after a while. And by all means use 'reveal' or, better yet, 'edison' bulbs.

My viewing setup for inkjet prints is an edison bulb at a 45 degree angle to a simple easel I made up out of foamcore. I futzed about with various bulbs before settling on the edison.

Eagerly awaiting the posting on the darkroom sound system...

[Robert Roaldi]

Very classy.

[Mike Johnston]

Jamie,
Have not forgotten at all, I promise you. We'll get to that near the end of this series.

Mike

[Rob Atkins]

The combination of safelight and blue-masked windows makes it look like a disco. Cool. What's the cover charge?

[Eric Rose]

The use of a dimmer switch is a sound plan. Personally I use 40 watt bulbs and no dimmer. The glass plate can also be used when you want to do some bleaching. I trust you are setting up a small surgical rubber hose to supply water to the print when bleaching. I first saw that setup when in Bruce Barnbaum's darkroom. Great system.

[Rob Atkins]

PS: Didn't mean to sound too facetious with my prior comment; I speak only with envy for the new darkroom.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

One of the many nice things about a B&W darkroom -- a dimmer is a real possibility. For color viewing, you wouldn't want your color temperature wandering like that!

[Mike Johnston]

Eric,
Yes, Bruce is the King of potassium ferricyanide! He's really good at that technique.

Mike

[Dean Wight]

I haven't been in a darkroom in, yikes, 35 years, so discount accordingly when I ask "Should the viewing switch be RIGHT NEXT to the safelight switch?"

[Dave Polaschek]

Mike, as Jamie pointed out, I hope you left enough power for the audio. Those big old tube amps do draw a fair amount of current.

Plus you have to remember to light-tight the amp so the glow from the cathode heaters doesn't spoil your prints.

I joke because I'm jealous. :)

[Adrian Malloch]

Mike, I am highly envious.
A Leitz Focomat v35 and an Agfa Varioscope are both gathering dust (well actually they are stored safely) but alas, alack; there is no space to set up a darkroom.

Also, I noticed that you have some eco energy-saver bulbs for the room lights. I suspect that they, like fluorescents, will have an after-burn effect. That is, they emit a faint glow for quite some time after they have been turned off.

Adrian

[Bill Rogers]

I echo David's comment regarding the GFCI. I would install a GFCI breaker to feed the receptacle strips.

[Patrick Dodds]

It is a tribute to your writing I believe that I am assiduously following this building project of yours despite not having the slightest desire, nor the least of the skills required, to build a darkroom. Mind you, once the audio goes in maybe I'll change my mind. Thanks for keeping us informed Mike and hope the rest goes well.

[Mike Johnston]

Rob,
No worries. Double cover for you.

Mike the Bouncer

[Mike Johnston]

Dean,
That's the beauty of building a PERSONAL darkroom. I can accommodate my own habits and not worry about things I know I won't mind. I'll be fine with the light switches like that.

Besides, the way I'll be working, the only time I'll be turning the safelights off is when I'm turning the viewing lights on. So there's no risk of a mix-up.

Mike

[Mike Johnston]

Adrian,
Right you are. Those will no doubt go away in the long term. They just happened to be what I had in the basement light fixtures before this project started.

However, I won't be turning those white lights on and off as I work. Those are just the "clean-up lights," so to speak.

Mike

[Bryce Lee]

This the darkroom that also serves as an indoor swimming pool?

Let's hope those outlets are properly grounded, wouldn't want you to get shocked while standing in the swimming poolQ

[Abdul Rahman]

Mike,

I envy you. Never had the experience of having a darkroom and overwhelmed by everything digital nowadays the mere thought of the possibility of venturing into developing my own prints sounds exciting to say the least.

May be I'll include this possibility into my "might-want-to" list.

Congratulations

[John Haines]

Mike, Great project but one caveat:
You write, "This picture also shows the switches for the lighting. The switch plate is placed high, above the shelf, to keep it well away from the wet."

The outlets are also above the shelf, presumably for the same reason. I'm not an electrician and the photo isn't informative enough to determine the
type of outlet strip you have but i have built a couple of darkrooms and know that in most places (maybe all) in the US, any electrical outlet that is near any water source must be GFCI protected (ground fault circuit interrupter).

I don't want to be a party pooper but you might want to check your local electrical codes - and your homeowner's insurance. Should you have
an electrical fire and postmortem inspection shows you were not up to code, it could void your insurance, even if it was not the cause of the fire -
insurance companies love to find reasons not to pay.

John

[Eric Rose]

Ah, the sweet sounds of music while printing. In my darkroom I have an old Quad 303 amp, Quad 33 preamp and some wunderkin CD changer. The speakers came out of a recording studio. As we all know you have to be in the right mood to get a good print so the choice of music varies. Sometimes loud, sometimes soft but always well appreciated.

[Jeff Damron]

Oh, man, your darkroom is looking nice! Even better than the one I have in my utility room (no basement) where my trays of chemicals go on the washer and dryer and my prints go in a utility sink until I'm ready for the final wash. I can only light-proof it after the sun goes down. I think people need to understand that they can develop prints in a small space with some forethought. Though maybe this is also why I haven't turned off the lights in my "dark" room in about 6 months. Anyhow, your darkroom looks to be shaping up nicely.

[Mike Johnston]

"i have built a couple of darkrooms and know that in most places (maybe all) in the US, any electrical outlet that is near any water source must be GFCI protected"

John,
Right you are, and that wouldn't be a bad idea anyway, but bear in mind my "wet side" isn't wet--there's no running water and no drain. It'll just be trays on a countertop. A GFCI might still be a good idea, but I've been informed I'm not in violation of code (first of all I wouldn't want to be, period, but also, I wouldn't put the pictures on the internet if knew I was!).

Mike

[Keith B.]

Mike, a small suggestion: take the time to re-route the power cord out of the power strip top surface, so the cord isn't sticking out of the strip right into your wet work area. You'll need to disassemble the strip, drill a new hole on the top surface, install a new grommet(low cost, available at any hardware store) and reroute the cord. The tidyness of this new arrangement will please you every time you use the room.

[Isaac Crawford]

What kind of materials are you going to be using? Are there still papers that require a red safelight instead of an "OC" light?

[Pak-Ming Wan]

Mike,

I was going to say the same about having similar pull cord switches for the safelights and the viewing lights as someone else on this thread: but here's a potential solution. Stick or tie something (or a clothes peg) on one of them to give you a physical reminder each time you reach up to it. That way you won't ever make that mistake.

It's a bit like those little nubs they put on buttons on cars or keyboards so you can find your way around in the dark (or not looking down).

Pak

[Mike Johnston]

Thanks for all the good wishes and compliments!

I appreciate the tips about the light switches and such--and not to look a gift tip in the mouth (er...)--but don't forget, I've spent somewhere between 12,000 and 14,000 hours working in darkrooms in my life. Not as many as some but more than most. I know what I tend to do wrong and what I tend to get right. I'll wager I'll never get the light switches mixed up. It's just not a problem I've ever had.

BTW, my biggest problems in the darkroom: daydreaming, procrastinating (oops, those are my biggest problems ALL the time), and a serious and distinct tendency to workprint while I'm fine printing.

What I mean by that last is, I love to workprint--explore my contact sheets and make quick but good 8x10s of new negatives to see what the pictures look like. The process SHOULD be to live with the workprints for a while, see which pictures have "legs," then go back into the darkroom to make fine prints of the selects. What I do is, I go into the darkroom to make fine prints, make one or two, and then get bored with the fine printing--the problem being that I already know how any given negative is going to look in a well-printed version. There's no "reward" of discovery. So I "cheat" and explore a new negative I've never printed before, because I want to see what the picture will look like. IOW, I'm back to workprinting--only with big fiber paper instead of little RC paper. It's a problem. I need more discipline where that's concerned....

Mike

[Dennis Moyes]

Hi Mike.

Thanks for the article. It makes me realize how much I don't miss my darkroom and how thankful I am that it's all gone digital! I do miss Kodachrome though.

[John Nollendorfs]

Mike:
Hope you try making some digital negatives to do contact prints. Would like to hear your take on how the prints compare with enlarger made enlargements. This would also allow you to make "silver" prints from your digital camera.

[Roger Bradbury]

John, Mike, everyone

It’s quite right to be concerned about electrical safety, but not everyone understands how the various protective devices work. Here is some information from an ex-electrician. This is brief view of a huge subject. If in doubt about anything electrical, ask and don’t guess.

I do not believe that a Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor (Residual Current Device in the UK) will prevent many electrical fires but fires are often prevented by fuses or circuit breakers. Though you are quite right about insurance companies, John.

Electrical fires are generally caused when an electrical appliance or wiring has far more amps than it can handle. This can be caused by a partial or complete short circuit or by overloading. Overloading might be where too many appliances are used on a circuit in a house that feeds power outlets (sockets) A short circuit is where there is no restriction on the current; instead of going through the appliance where there is a restriction or a resistance to current flow, it takes a shorter path where there is little resistance.

Fuses and circuit breakers protect against short circuits and overloads. They also protect against electrical shock when there is a short circuit between the hot (or live) wire and an earthed metal object, for example the metal casing of an appliance.

It is possible to draw a bit more current than the rating of the fuse or circuit breaker without the fuse blowing or the breaker switching off the current, but doing this quickly damages flexes, outlets, cables in walls etc, and will cause problems later. Do not do it! Ever! This is a very good way to start a house fire.

A GFCI or RCD detects a difference between the current travelling in the hot or live wire and the current in the neutral wire. The difference is in the order of a few milliamps and in the UK, RCDs protecting sockets in houses are set to trip at 30mA. A bit more than 30 mA is enough to kill you.

Some of the electrical resistance of the human body is in the skin, and if the skin is very wet then the resistance of the body is lower and so a larger current will flow through that body. GFCIs are required in the US, I understand, where water taps and electrical appliances are close together.

I’ve heard of Arc Fault Circuit Interruptors being used in the US and that they prevent some fires, but they’re not something I’ve had experience of, nor do I know my way around the USA’s electrical building codes.

Roger