AGFA Color RA4 Chemicals, how much starter do I need?

[LAMitchell]

I got a job lot of AGFA RA4 chemicals AP94 P to use in a Nova process. With the kit I have CD94 LR starter. Now I have enough chemicals to make 40 litres and I have 1 litre of starter so at a guess I just add 25ml per litre of dev. Is this correct, and what about replenishing?

Can anyone point me in the direction for this info, I looked on Fuji Hunt but it was all piece meal.

Cheers Lee.

 

[LAMitchell]

Actually got it sorted. The guy who originally sod me the stuff took me through it;
it comes in 10 litre kits and is designed for machines that constantly replenish, what he was saying is the starter kicks off the Silver halide in the dev and so the process starts.
You make up 10 litres of dev then split off 7 litres, this you then add 207 ml of starter to and top it up with water back to 10 litres. This becomes your dev, the 3 litre solution is your top up/replenisher. Now mark reckons you should just keep toping it up by how much the paper has soaked up plus evaporation and so the cycle has started. Sounds pretty straight forward, I guess the BLIX is just top up as and when.

Any thoughts?

 

[Nick Zentena]

Starter is only used when starting out. If you need 1 litre of developer you only need enough starter for the 1litre. Over time you should draw off a little old chemical and top up with replenisher. It's important to draw off the old stuff and not just top up. If you do just top up I think you'll end up with by-products building up. PE will explain it correctly -)

 

[LAMitchell]

Done about 4 metres square of paper topping up the Dev. Just pulled off 300ml of dev stop and BLIX and put in fresh stuff. In total I had 2L in the processor and have replenished with 500ml. The chemicals were not happy for at least two sheets before settling down again. Not sure where I am going here but the chemicals seem pretty robust and need little replenishment just top ups, so the 300ml refresh was premature. I am tempted just to do top ups and after 10L of chems clean out the processor and start fresh.

Oh BTW it seems the BLIX was affected the most in I was getting streaks and a fogged base for the first few strips. Endura paper is the worst but Ilfocolor really does not care. Paper versus film base I guess.

 

[claytume]

What Nick says is pretty well right.

The starter lowers the fresh developer activity, if you run without it you get really dense prints. Eventually the prints will come right. You can also print to exhaustion, no replenish, you end up with a lot more prints this way. I use both ways depending on the quantity of prints to be done.

Replenish rates vary too depending on throughput per day. If the machine sits around doing nothing you need to replenish more. If I'm going to have a few days or weeks break between printing I empty the machine out and store the chems in full bottles. You can get a few months out of them this way.

Clayton

 

[LAMitchell]

If you print to exhaustion (your dev I guess ) how much do you top the Dev with replenisher by?

 

[claytume]

If you print to exhaustion (your dev I guess ) how much do you top the Dev with replenisher by?

you don't......you throw it out......it's a very useful technique for doing a certain quantity of prints, once done you empty the machine out and clean it.