LPL multi colour enlarger C7700MX price

Mick Fagan said:

This enlarger is in Melbourne, is still available, and the price hasn't changed, it is still free!

First come, first served.

Free Colour Enlarger Melbourne

On Friday I helped someone pick up some stuff and among other things, I sort of picked up a darkroom of stuff. Among the stuff is a Durst M605 Colour enlarger, which works. It is missing a baseboard, but that can be easily fixed. I could possibly help with that. I'm not saying it is brilliant...

www.photrio.com

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Happy to take the enlarger, but I’m in Sydney 2154. Will check if any friends driving to Melbourne If you can offer shipping that’s great. Happy to pay postage and packaging costs.

BMbikerider said:

There are multigrade heads around but very hard to come by and are very expensive

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I know - I have two of the enlargers. One with a colour head, and one VCCE.
You don't want to know how little I paid for them.

I would still have mine but it really overheated and 'cooked' the wires inside the head. Apart from that, getting an LPL head apart to to access the wires inside the double skin where they attach to a terminal block - I would still like to know how to do it!
Also the heat resistant wires attached to the ceramic terminal block - I have got to question the description because they were not that effective, and in any case are no longer available as spares.
I went back to a colour head MX and since bought spare head as a back-up.

Mick Fagan said:

This enlarger is in Melbourne, is still available, and the price hasn't changed, it is still free!

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That's a great offer; the M605 is a very nice piece of kit. I used one for a few years; a joy to work with.

MattKing said:

The LPL 7700 doesn't offer any choice - there is just one mixing box available for it.
But generally speaking, your advice is excellent.

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Hi Matt, the enlarger I was trying to give CrazyCockatoo was a Beseler 67S, but, as mentioned, it turned out to only be set up for 35mm, right down to the mixing box. I have an LPLC7700 myself, so I'm fairly familiar with it.

Mr. Fagan's generous offer beneath your reply is very much WHY I was hoping I'd have an enlarger to send on up to Sydney; I'm fairly certain that Mick is responsible for at least half of my darkroom fit out and I wish I was in a position to pay that kindness and generosity forward.

CrazyCockatoo said:

O

both. so if an enlarger was packed well, shipping won't cause any damage? I'll then consider from buying overseas

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You might want to scour a listing here in the U.S called Craigslist, there are pages for most large cities. You might find a seller who is willing to pack and ship as long as you are willing to pay the additional cost.

Here is sample a Sanders color, for $50.

Molli said:

Hi Matt, the enlarger I was trying to give CrazyCockatoo was a Beseler 67S, but, as mentioned, it turned out to only be set up for 35mm, right down to the mixing box

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Yes - those Beseler 67 VCCE heads are wonderful - I lusted after one before I essentially swapped out my Beseler 67 for the two LPLs.
Of course my 67 was equipped for all formats - multiple mixing boxes included.
That was a great offer though. If I had the room for the larger footprint of the Beseler, I would have stuck with it happily.

BMbikerider said:

I would still have mine but it really overheated and 'cooked' the wires inside the head. Apart from that, getting an LPL head apart to to access the wires inside the double skin where they attach to a terminal block - I would still like to know how to do it!
Also the heat resistant wires attached to the ceramic terminal block - I have got to question the description because they were not that effective, and in any case are no longer available as spares.
I went back to a colour head MX and since bought spare head as a back-up.

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do you know why it's overheating? i have an leica( or letiz wizlar) focomat 1c and it's having the old wires. It gets really hot when working like 30 minutes. Do you know should i just give it a break like every twenty minutes?

Molli said:

Hi Matt, the enlarger I was trying to give CrazyCockatoo was a Beseler 67S, but, as mentioned, it turned out to only be set up for 35mm, right down to the mixing box. I have an LPLC7700 myself, so I'm fairly familiar with it.

Mr. Fagan's generous offer beneath your reply is very much WHY I was hoping I'd have an enlarger to send on up to Sydney; I'm fairly certain that Mick is responsible for at least half of my darkroom fit out and I wish I was in a position to pay that kindness and generosity forward.

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I've contact Mr Fargan and he's gonna try to figuer out how to get it safely to Sydney. Also, i do a bit of research and see it's called solid state dichro color head. Do that means it run on led or somewhat?

CrazyCockatoo said:

I've contact Mr Fargan and he's gonna try to figuer out how to get it safely to Sydney. Also, i do a bit of research and see it's called solid state dichro color head. Do that means it run on led or somewhat?

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No - that refers to the power supply.
Unless it is the very recently introduced LED based head, which I suspect would be very, very expensive.

MattKing said:

Unless it is the very recently introduced LED based head, which I suspect would be very, very expensive.

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That's unlikely; Mick's photo shows a regular M605 and Durst certainly never made a LED head for these.
The 'solid state' does probably refer to a thyristor-based power supply. These have a bit of a habit of self-destructing, but worry about the problems as they appear, not before.

koraks said:

That's unlikely; Mick's photo shows a regular M605 and Durst certainly never made a LED head for these.
The 'solid state' does probably refer to a thyristor-based power supply. These have a bit of a habit of self-destructing, but worry about the problems as they appear, not before.

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yeah the enlarger use a halogen light. Now understand that it's about power supply, thanks

CrazyCockatoo said:

do you know why it's overheating? i have an leica( or letiz wizlar) focomat 1c and it's having the old wires. It gets really hot when working like 30 minutes. Do you know should i just give it a break like every twenty minutes?

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It wasn't a single time it must have taken place over a good number of years but was eventually traced to the ceramic block into which the bulb is plugged and the two tiny tubes where the wire pins go. These holes were corroded internally.
This was discovered for me by an electronics engineer who suspected the circuitry and tested it for me and found the Ohm resistance was very high.
This was increasing the resistance to the power and apparently the heat. Now, these ceramic blocks are unobtainable so what I did was use an old bulb and covered the pins with very fine abrasive paste and pushed the base of the bulb in and out number of time to try to clean up the corrosion, then cleaned them out to remove any residue.
This of course will open out the holes so that the pins would now not necessarily give a good contact, but by cleaning the pins themselves and 'tinning' the pins with a coating of soft solder and adding a small blob of solder on the tips of the pins. Then by using a bit of pressure forced the pins into the holes. This has the effect rubbing away the 'blobs' of solder onto the insides of the holes, and as solder does not corrode this will both make the pins of the new bulb fit with a good close contact and stop or reduce the risk of corrosion returning.

As a post script the same bulb is used in other enlargers which will use a similar ceramic block so there may be spare block available and it may be possible to splice one of the other manufacturers ceramic blocks onto the wires so they will work.

To answer your question about overheating with your Leitz 1c. Why do you need to leave the enlarger switched on for 30 mins? Surely an exposure for prints must be measured in seconds not minutes! When the exposure is complete you shut the light off which will be enough to cool the lamp house. I believe the 1c uses a normal full voltage bulb (in UK 230V) with good ventilation, so the same problem with the LPL will not happen because they work with 24V but in an enclosed space which to be honest has very little in the way of through ventilation only by conduction
If you are worried about the condition of your wires in the 1c you can easily replace them using a good quality 3 core cable which has an outside covering of a woven material just like that used on electric irons.

FWIW, the ceramic block that the bulb connects into the dichro light source for the LPL 7700 is an easily found standard connector.
The only thing challenging about replacing it is that the wiring to it is routed through a part of the head that makes it difficult to replace exactly as installed.
This is from the VCCE head, because it is at hand:

CrazyCockatoo said:

Hi guys,
i'm looking forward to buy a LPL c7700MX enlarger, anyone knows what's a reasonable price for it(If possible please give in USD or AUD)？Thanks a lot

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There are two for sale in Adelaide on FBM, $500/each plus some extras.