Which Safelight?

[Steve Harpold]

Hey all,

Quick update on safe lights, in most cases it is a thing of the past.

Why?
Old style light bulbs (not that old for some on here) incandescent or florescent have our light in a very broad spectrum. Not exact but from around 300-700 NM. Emulsion is sensitive to light from 280-420 NM maybe a little higher. The light NM range that emulsion is sensitive to is not visible hence would make a poor choice for lighting applications.

Hence?
LED tubes, lights used for visible light application would not emit light in the 300-420 as it would be a waste of energy (it is not visible) so it is not necessary to use a filter to filter out wave lengths between 300-420 since there isn’t anything there anyway or such a small amount it is irrelevant.

When buying new LED tubes?
Look at the spectrum of light and make sure 300-420 NM is not present and you will be good to go

[screenxpress]

Don't need em anymore as we don't use Darkrooms.

Our screen room is a normal room with regular tube lights in the ceiling. We coat, store, image, burn and even washout screens in regular shop light conditions.

Thanks John.

I stopped using protective lighting years ago.  Obviously you can't leave dry screens out under the lights for storage, but coating, set-up for exposure, and washout under florescent bulbs has not been an issue.

[Admiral]

FYI our LED lights are GREAT at exposing emulsion.  They are 'non UV emitting' LED high bay lights but they sure do expose emulsion.  I tinted them with yellow film and the film itself degraded over less than a year from the UV the LEDs are in fact putting out.

I will be putting a stronger filter under them shortly in addition.  We don't get much UV scatter / exposure but enough to have to cover tops of screen racks. 

It is very bright in our dark room, we have 3 of these 500 watt bright LED lights in our dark room fyi.

Filters I got are from UVprocess.com, there are a few options there.  I also put the amber film on a large glass window between 2 rooms so we can see into the dark room too.

[Zelko-4-EVA]

we have the standard drop ceiling size 2x4 LED lights in our screenroom - i also used the UVprocess.com amber film.  i havent measured the UV output in our screen room but now its got me thinking...

[Admiral]

Correction - they are 100 watt VTac high bay UFO lights.  Still quite bright.  500 watt would be absurdly bright though.