Amaloco Alkaline fixer / Fotospeed FX40

[Tom Kershaw]

A few months ago I posted some questions about Fotospeed FX40. Reviewing the MSDS sheet again:

Dead Link Removed

I see the fixer actually appears to be manufactured or supplied by Amaloco, where the product reference is given as: X 44 ALKAFIX (TF3). The 'TF3' caught my attention, perhaps FX40 is a more dilute version of the TF-3 public formula?

Ingredients given as:

Water 20-50%
Ammonium Thiosulphate 20-50%
Sodium Sulphite 5-10%
Sodium Metaborate 0.5-1%

According to MSDS:
pH (concentrate, 20ºC): 8.5-9.5
pH (1+4, 20ºC): 8 - 9

Even though confirmed by Fotospeed I'm still not convinced the fixing time should be 7 minutes at 1+9.

Tom.

 

[RobertV]

X89 neutral odorless fix from Amaloco is a very nice fix. The last production was in July 2008 when the Amaloco factory in Ommen has been closed. A new production of some Amaloco chemicals is going to be produced in Germany now by Saban Suvatlar. He's also doing some production for Rollei-Maco (CG512 - R.L.S.) and Moersch.

For film fix you can use 1+4 3-5 minutes. For paper fix you can use 1+7 - 1+9 (1-2 minutes).

The overall capacity is high for this fix. Always use a stop bath before using X89.
For testing the fix you can use X10 (fix tester, containing KI , Potassium Iodide) 10 ml fix + 5 drops X10. A milkey solution is an indicator over 2 grams/Liter Ag+ (=Silver) ions.


Best regards,

Robert

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Thanks for the information. I didn't realise Amaloco had closed. My fix appears to be X44, how does X89 relate to X44?

Tom.

 

[RobertV]

Some OEM products were for Fotospeed (RA-4). The same for the Rollei-Maco company: AM1001, X89, AM74/R.H.S., the graphical developer and some more.

What is exactly the content of X44 I do not know. I only know the clear time of X89 is very short, sometimes < 30 seconds for a cubical type film.

Best regards,

Robert

 

[AgX]

I didn't realise Amaloco had closed.

The company Amaloco has closed their production and business.

However part of their products, rights and brandnames have been taken over by the german company Phototec who announced to offer these within the next weeks.

http://www.phototec.de/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=17