Kodaslide LED Backlighting
I wanted to also be able reverse the work completely, leaving no damage at all to my classic viewer. The result is what you see in the photo below. I purchased a pair of automotive LED panels from eBay that have 36 flat ended white (relatively) LEDs. They are a tiny bit big, but I was able to cut the circuit boards down a bit without cutting away any important traces. I also had to cut the tops off a row of LEDs on the Left eye panel so that it would fit past the bulb holder in the viewer. As you can see, I have not atteched the panels to the viewer in any way. They are free to float around, but when the viewer is closed, there is no place for them to go.
The panel leads are soldered into the threaded portion of a .50 cent flashlight bulb, from which I broke off the glass. This way, if I want to remove the LED panels, I just unscrew them and screw in a bulb.
The LED panels require 12 Volts. To get this, I bought two holders for 4 double A cells. The total Voltage of 8 cells is 12v. I then soldered a small square of aluminum sheet to each of the leads and hot glued one to each end of the holder. Voila! two 6v batteries, the same size as a D cell.
The colour of the LEDs is a bit too blue and I also needed a diffuser , so I created a diffuser from a white plastic shopping bag, folded over a piece of a yellow plastic shopping bag (I will also experiment with some strobe gels to see if I can improve the balance). The colours are not as perfect as I would like, but after comparing with a viewer using a halogen bulb, I have decided that the colours are more pleasing then with the yellow cast given by the bulb.
Above is the LED panel. This one is slightly different than what I used, but if I were to make another I would get a pair of these and use the little plug to separate the screw thread from the LED panels. This would make installation a bit easier.
The bottom line is. this is a great upgrade. No damage to the viewer, a much brighter image (I much prefer under exposed Kodachrome images for their saturation and bright colour), no heat build up, no infrared damage to the slides, long battery life, and no cord, all for about $15 and an hour's work.
I love my hand viewer again!
Lorgnette Glasses
Here are a pair of Lorgnette stereo viewing glasses I have made for viewing parallel stereo pairs. I felt a need to make these since I am able to easily crossview but find it impossible to parallel freeview (in spite of trying for years). I'm not making these for sale, but thought someone may be interested in how my mind works.
You can make these easily, and look cool too!
I started with a pair of Dollar store reading glasses, and removed the lenses (they pop out with a little persuasion). Then I got a Dollar store plastic magnifier, which I promply sawed in half.
I then took the extracted lenses and filed them to a wedge shaped top and bottom, to fit in the groove of the eyeglass lens frame.
The last step was to determine the image cut off, by putting masking tape on the inner edges of the lenses until each eye can only see one image. Then I masked the glasses up and spray painted the white bars, perfecly set up for my eyes.
Contact me at: newportts@bellnet.ca