My UV LED Printer Design for Alternative Prints

My UV LED printer design for alternative prints is simple and easy to complete in one afternoon. In this article, I share the parts I used to build my UV printer.

I used fluorescent blacklight bulbs for years before converting to an LED design. I had considered switching over to LED, but I was concerned about the quality of my prints (contrast, tonal range, etc.) and figured the best way to understand if LED UV lights would work was to build the unit and compare the prints to my existing UV printer.

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My UV LED Printer Design for Alternative Prints

I use the Barrina UV LED Blacklight 24-inch light bars rated at 395-400nm wavelength for all my alternative printing (Platinum/Palladium, Kallitype, Salt, etc.)

The rest of the build is just wood, screws, and a couple of hinges.

I wanted to build a UV printer to make 20×24 platinum/palladium prints, so I made my base and top from a 3/4 inch sheet of 24 inches wide by 48 inches long plywood. Home Depot or Lowes sells pre-cut sheets of plywood this size to make things even easier.

My side walls are 1×12 pine, and I used to have a hinged door on my unit. I took it off and replaced it with a black felt curtain instead. The hinged door got in my way, so I removed it.

My typical platinum/palladium printing time with my old fluorescent unit was 5 to 6 minutes. With the new LED unit, after some modifications, my printing time is just 1 1/2 minutes for my standard negatives. This is important to me because the sensitizer performs better with shorter exposure times, and anytime I can reduce process time in the darkroom, that always makes me happy.

I figured out that, over time, I added more LED lights to reduce my printing times. I spaced the LED lights one inch apart, and I have 17 lights in my system, as shown in the photo below.

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Printer Build Notes

You can connect up to 12 LED fixtures in one series. Since I have a total of 17 lights, I ended up with two power cords. I just plug both of the LED power plugs into a power strip and the power strip into my darkroom timer.

I used angle brackets to attach the side walls to the top and bottom plywood. You will want to use 1/2 inch screws so they won’t go through the 1×12 sideboards which are 3/4 of an inch thick.

You can easily build this in one afternoon if you have basic building skills. I recently built one for a friend, and it took me about 45 minutes to complete the entire project.

If you have any questions, feel free to share them in the comments below the article, and I will be happy to help. I think the design and the build are very straightforward, and I doubt you will have any issues.

In the comment section below, share what type of prints you are making, and let me know how your build project went.

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