Category: DIY

A studio set

In the journey of making cyanotype on glass, I would like to make some negatives of various small plants with a 6×7 camera. I’m not so happy with he setup I got right now and with the lights. So I decided to build a small studio set to get better control on the positioning and the lightning of the elements I want to picture.

This is the first step. I’ll probably paint it in the end, but for test purpose, a roll of paper should be ok to start with and check if it fit my needs.

UV Exposure Unit for Cyanotype

Here we are building a UV exposure unit for the cyanotype process. It is only about the LED pannel. In my case, I have build a furniture which have the box for UV exposure. It is about 25 cm high.

What we need :

  • wood boards
  • metal plate
  • 30 UV LEDs : 1W each LED with emitting light in the 380nm
  • power supply for the LEDs, we need two of them
  • some electrical wires
  • heat paste for CPU
  • two components glue

Steps:

  • Prepare a 50-60cm x 40cm wood board
  • Add some 4 to 5 cleats about half a centimeter thick in order to attach the metal plate on top of the wooden board with a layer of air for heat dissipation
  • attach the metal board. It should be a little bit smaller that the wooden board
  • attach the two power supply on what will be the rear end
  • draw a grid with 5 line and 6 columns space of 5cm between each lines and 6cm between each column
  • put a drop of some CPU heat paste at each intersection

  • circle it with glue
  • glue the LED

This is what it look like when you’re done

  • Now connect the LEDs : we are connecting them in series, we need to make two independent circuits

  • Connect the 220V side of the power supply to a cable with a switch
  • Make a quick test
  • And finally attach the board in your UV box.

When exposing a cyanotype coated paper, we get a very nice blue after 3 minutes, and solid blue in 4 minutes.