[photo-3d] Viewer illumination

[E R Swanson <ers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some time ago I posted my version of the cold cathode illumination setup
for a full frame viewer. It's suitable for most of the wooden box viewers
that have been home made or commercially sold, and will work great on the
Comby on similar viewers. The great thing is that you can build them
yourself in an hour or two for about $45 using nothing more sophisticated
than a hot glue gun, a little superglue, and a Dremel tool. Because the
illumination stage is cold cathode, it has an extremely low power draw,
low heat, and long battery life running on 4 AA batteries. Using a sawed
up plastic WalMart shower mirror, it reflects the tube and gives you the
effect of having a bunch of illumination tubes. I posted the info to the
list once, so the details should be in the p3d archive. (I can't claim
credit for originating the cold cathode approach, but I can't remember who
first came up with it, alas...)

You can see the one I did for viewing 2x2 slides (using a pair of Edmunds
dual achromats) at: http://kendaco.telebyte.com/~ers/viewer.jpg

Also I hear Dalia has an illumination stage for the Dukes Viewmaster
viewer. If I correctly remember the price as being about $60, this seems
very reasonable for getting even light to what is the best VM viewer on
the market, assuming her lighting unit delivers even illumination. (I
don't have one yet.) The Dukes VM viewer has great 12x optics (it uses
Edmunds high quality flat field focusing achromat lenses)-- this is the
limit you can go on VM, because you can't get your nose any closer to the
device! It's far superior to that ugly clunky machined aluminum VM thing
that's imported from Holland or somewhere. I prefered the earlier Dukes
transport that used the Meopta transport, but the new domestic ones are
ok-- it's the optics that count, and it's still lightweight and
comfortable to hold.

--ES