Hi all, I have adopted a Beseler 45 enlarger ststem that came with two heads, one is an older Cold light head and the other is the Minolta 45A head. I am completely baffled by the Minolta head as I have just found out, it flashes for light output(?) So at this point I don't know if it's working, or not working, or maybe partially working. When I plugged it in the controller shows a very faint display, not enough to read but it does flickers something. The head pops when I press the on/off switch and that seems to be all it is doing now. My question is, is this normal operational condition or I need to replace some if not all the tubes? And if so, how does one know which one needs replacing? The cold light head is a bit on the dim side but it seems to work as it should.

Instruction manual for early Beseler/Minolta #8289 and #8290 45A Enlarger Light Source systems. Aug 19, 2012 I picked up a Beseler Minolta 45a head. It's clean and it appears to be in good condition. Everything I tested on the controller and the head with.

Thanks in advance. Thanks Gary, and yes, the head didn't come with a manual. I think I must have played around with the focus mode and it didn't do anything.I have open the unit and the tubes does not appeared to be burned/cracked but it/they could very well be dead anyway. There is one longer tube that runs perpendicular to and on top of a series of five slightly shorter tubes sitting underneath red blue green filters.

And the display on the control unit is so dim that it's unlegible, is that normal? Or that should work once the focusing tube is working? Cheers Robert. Thanks for chiming in Keithboston.

So the lastest development, I plugged it in and powered it up in semi darkness and sure enough, the display works fine. It is a bit on the dim side, with all the sophistication electronic factoring into the design, I am somewhat disappointed that it does not have a display dimmness control like the Gralab timer does:-) I still have not read the instruction manual yet, my excuse is that I am testing the intuitivess of the design and I must say, it's not like anything I have play with it before and I don't think I can fully make it work without reading the manual. One thing is certain that the focusing light tube is either burned or some sort of malfuction within. I can fire the the exposure flashing tubes by turning the power switch off so that seems to be working, assuming all five of them are firing. I will have to dig into the manual to see how the thing suppose to attach to a timer, and how does the flashing suppose to work in relation to linear time exposure. Sigh, this is one of those instance freebie does not equal to free sailing. Just read the manual - you will need to, for sure.

It doesn't use a timer per se, it does it's own internal calculation for number of flashes needed for a given exposure setting. You can ratchet up the numbers (in 1cc increments) to add/subtract density. You can also use the meter to determine exposure and color balance, once you have calibrated it for whatever you want.

When I used one professionally, we had 3 channels set up for color balance for white, black and fleshtones. It worked great, nailed exposure and color on the first print (this was for a newspaper so working fast was critical sometimes). My workflow is standardized on a couple different films, so usually I am not using the color ringaround or metering functions, once I get the exposure dialed in it doesn't change a whole lot from print to print, presuming film is correctly exposed. Also remember it is additive, so works the opposite of subtractive heads.

But once you get used to that, it actually makes more sense and is easier to conceptualize, I think. Plus additive heads with narrow filters will have better results with color materials than subtractive heads with wide filters.

I have the manual, service manual, and a bunch of updates from ColorBAT (who used to service these), posted here: This is a great color head, (and enlarger too), I think it's the best color head Beseler ever made or sold, easily. Download Lagu Assalamualaikum Gama 1. Very sophisticated, even if you don't bother with the analyzer part. I have 5 or 6 of these (mostly since they can be found cheap, and to have them as spares), a bunch of spare bulbs, and a couple of the mixing chambers.

I generally only shoot one or two emulsions (Ektar and Portra), so once I have a base exposure sorted out, I rarely bother using the analyzer, but if you do a lot of different emulsions or different papers, it's pretty handy. My only gripes are the replacement flash bulbs are hard to find cheaply (cheaper to buy spare full heads, usually), and the flash tube output is somewhat low for really large prints (20x24 or higher, say.) Using your enlarging lens wide-open makes life easier for the flash tubes. Usually I use mine @ f/8 but may switch to f/5.6 in the future.