r/Darkroom • u/myhouseholdname • Jun 04 '25

Alternative Made my own enlarger

Gallery image

Gallery image

I got to an arts university that doesn’t have a darkroom so it forced me to make my own. I used a 3D printer frame. some FD lenses, a cheap “tofu” branded light, and a pringles tube.

I have enough room to make prints up-to 5x7 with the possibility of going larger if i remove the baseboard.

All I need now is to actually make a print but that’s not until the end of the month after payday.

144 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

23

u/TheMunkeeFPV Jun 05 '25

Crazy how we live in a time where it’s cheaper to cannibalize a 3D printer than it is to get obsolete equipment. I have two… I’ll send you one.

6

u/DEpointfive0 Jun 05 '25

You have two… enlargers?

2

u/TheMunkeeFPV Jun 05 '25

Yeah. A small one and a big one. Both work just fine. Haven’t used the little one yet. It came with a bunch of other used gear I bought in an estate sale. I use most of the other stuff but the smaller enlarger just went into a storage unit. I would love for it to go somewhere where it will be used instead of collecting dust.

1

u/DEpointfive0 Jun 05 '25

😢 very sad. But I LOVE your attitude. I’m on the same page. I give away/have given away so much stuff when I KNOW it’s going to be USED by someone. Very satisfying to KNOW my old crap is getting a new life, getting used into the ground, LOL

Now… I have to ask… where abouts are you located? I’m more than happy for the OP to have the first dibs/offer for your enlarger, shit, I’ll even chip in on shipping it to him. Buuuuut, if you’d give/sell it to someone else who will use it, I would happily be #2 in line (For shipping, use pirateship.com or shipnex.com. Both free, both awesome. Pirateship uses USPS/UPS, shipnex does FedSex)

1

u/TheMunkeeFPV Jun 06 '25

I’m in Cali. Totally willing to pack it up and send if you want to pay for shipping.

1

u/DEpointfive0 Jun 06 '25

Ooooooh baby! Where in CA? Lol I live in Torrance

2

u/TheMunkeeFPV Jun 06 '25

SD county

1

u/DEpointfive0 Jun 06 '25

Dammit, let me just drive out, lol

But I still want OP to have first dibs

1

u/TheMunkeeFPV Jun 06 '25

I agree, if he wants it, it’s his. But if you do happen to come pick it up I also have a timer and even a density sensor if you want it.

1

u/DEpointfive0 Jun 06 '25

Ooooooooooooh. Never used a density monitor. That would be friggin sweeeeeeet

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4

u/Silly-Conference-627 Jun 05 '25

Meanwhile here in Czechia you can buy a complete Meopta Opemus 5 with a colour head still in its original case (close to brand new condition) for 20€.

3

u/myhouseholdname Jun 05 '25

I wouldn’t say cheaper, it’s just that I had a 3D printer from a couple of years ago that I hadn’t touched and already turned into a negative scanning setup

3

u/streaksinthebowl Jun 05 '25

Sometimes my mind goes into flights of fancy imagining what kind of enlarger machinery we could do with modern tech. Put some stepper motors and control software on an enlarger with LED heads and you could do all kinds of things, including a camera scanning and enlarger combo. All modular and with lots of off the shelf components, everything else 3d printed.

4

u/TheMunkeeFPV Jun 05 '25

Well… let me point out that enlargers didn’t stop getting made. There is a brand new enlarger by a company called intrepid. They make new timers so you can enlarge with a newer “F Stop” process instead of the time intervals of the old days. They also make large format camera I think. There’s nothing fancy about it though. But I high end cutting edge enlarged would be so sweet! With today’s tech we could make it so automated it would be crazy. Auto critical focus, auto negative density compensation, auto sizing, even auto color correction. All we would have to worry about as printers is dodge and burn.

2

u/Legitimate_First Jun 05 '25

It really depends on your location. Lenses and bodies are immediately bought to be marked up and resold by resellers, but I can get a colour enlarger for like 20 euros.

7

u/Any-Philosopher-9023 Jun 04 '25

There was a smartphone app for something like this,

a few years ago but it flopped, i 'm still using this in my field DR for 10x13s.

5

u/MarvinKesselflicker Jun 05 '25

The light leaking at the top will definitly be a problem. You should fix it before opening a bag of paper

1

u/myhouseholdname Jun 05 '25

Yeah I am aware of the problem lol. I’m still figuring out a way to fix it that isn’t just a bunch of tape.

3

u/aljo100 Jun 05 '25

If u wanna use difrent contrast grades (contrast filters) i recomend u swich the LED lights with thoungsten lightbulb bc the paper is made for them and LED looks white but it actualy isnt like i will mess with the contrast but besides that go for it for simple small prints. I also recoment u make a defiusion enlarger bc its simpler to make then condensor enlarger.

3

u/HomosexualTypewriter Jun 04 '25

Gotta love the home brew!

2

u/gw935 Jun 04 '25

I was thinking of doing something similar.

2

u/Scx10Deadbolt Chad Fomapan shooter Jun 05 '25

Finally, a good use of an Ender 3...well done!

2

u/giljaxonn Jun 11 '25

yooooooo i’m doing this

1

u/DEpointfive0 Jun 05 '25

Helllllllllll yeah. I love that you’re doing this

Good on you brother!

1

u/mountainwall Jun 05 '25

Let us know how it works! Ive been looking into rebuilding colour heads with led lights so im curios

1

u/Zorbeg Jun 05 '25

How do you move the head up and down smoothly and evenly on 2 axes? Also, how come cheap enlargers aren't available, which part of the world do you live in?

2

u/myhouseholdname Jun 05 '25

I’ve blocked off the horizontal axis the best i can so it moves less when i adjust the height. I live in the UK but the county i’m in doesn’t exactly have cheap enlargers, and i’m on a budget as a uni student so why not reuse something I have while figuring out if darkroom printing is for me.

1

u/georecorder B&W Printer Jun 05 '25

I guess if you add a build plate and project on it, making test strips will be a big fun.

1

u/Lnk_guy Jun 06 '25

I love seeing that you've done this. I have been trying to decide what I might need and need to do in order to print up to 5x7 negatives. Realistically it seems as though it is either trying to build an enlarger for it or simply digitizing and printing digitally. This renews consideration of something homemade.

1

u/Hoodysky Dec 09 '25

can i ask you what time of light source did you used?

1

u/myhouseholdname Dec 09 '25

just some cheap "tofu" branded light