c41 replenishment with jobo atl2+

hi

so i have a specific question about how to properly set up a replensihed system with a jobo atl2+.

i have experience wit developing colour(c41/e6) so most of the usage is very clear to me.

i use the fuji environeg chemistry as i get them cheaply in europe and they are readily available.

the replenishment rate for 135 film is 60-89ml/film, which i use most often, but the machine only accepts 1l of chemistry for each step.

my question is:
do i pour the used chemistry back into the processbottles and ad the replenisher for each solution? and what if this is more then the 1l capacity of the bottles? or do i use the whole 1l of chemistry and afterwards ad the given rate of ml/film. then pour back and start again without changing the processtimes

i hope some of you guys can help my here or even has experience with a replenished system on a jobo machine

I'm not familiar with the ATL, but I use a CPP2. Replenishment works like this, assuming you want to replenish at 80mL/roll:
- put 1L of working solution in the bottles
- put, say, 4 rolls of film in the tank
- process the film, returning all chemistry back to the bottles
- put 4x80=320mL of fresh replenisher in a clean container
- top up the container with 1000-320=680mL of working solution from the process you just ran
- discard the leftover working solution (it will probably be a bit under 320mL due to carryover losses)
- put the newly replenished 1L of working solution back in the bottle and start over again

You can use different replenishment rates for each chemical, as called for. Bleach should need much slower replenishment than developer and fixer.

thanks for the reply

just one more question regarding the replensihment.
couldn't i just fill the used solution in a bigger than 1l container ad the ml i have to replenish then pour a liter into the machine and gradually put the rest of the solution in
their respective tanks?
at the end i would end up with the roughly the same amount of solution that i initally mixed.

belichten said:

couldn't i just fill the used solution in a bigger than 1l container ad the ml i have to replenish then pour a liter into the machine and gradually put the rest of the solution in their respective tanks?
at the end i would end up with the roughly the same amount of solution that i initally mixed.

Click to expand...

You COULD do it this way, but you don't generally get as much use out of your replenisher.

If, as you said, you end up with the same amount of solution, then both methods are the same, and it doesn't matter. But for the most part, the amount of solution will increase. In this case, you are essentially wasting some of the replenisher if you add it prior to discarding. The loss is only on the order of a few percent, so it just depends on what it's worth to you.

belichten said:

thanks for the reply

just one more question regarding the replensihment.
couldn't i just fill the used solution in a bigger than 1l container ad the ml i have to replenish then pour a liter into the machine and gradually put the rest of the solution in
their respective tanks?
at the end i would end up with the roughly the same amount of solution that i initally mixed.

Click to expand...

No, because with that approach, you are immediately discarding some of the unused replenisher and therefore under-replenishing.

If you have 1L marked accurately on your main developer container, you can do something like this:
- process films
- recover used solution to some other container
- put carefully-measured quantity of replenisher in developer container
- top up developer container to 1L mark from recovery container
- discard leftovers in recovery container
- go again

You need to make sure that each time you replenish, the right amount of replenisher is added and that all you discard is old solution not replenished solution.

thanks again. i understand replenishing better now.

but couldn't i also reuse the discarded chemiclas by extending the time of the developer. if this produces results inferior to the normal c41 process then the savecehmiclas are not worth it. but i could use these chems for crossprocessing some films and have it ready in a different container in the atl2+ so i could run normal c41 besides cross-c41.

belichten said:

thanks again. i understand replenishing better now.

but couldn't i also reuse the discarded chemiclas by extending the time of the developer. if this produces results inferior to the normal c41 process then the savecehmiclas are not worth it. but i could use these chems for crossprocessing some films and have it ready in a different container in the atl2+ so i could run normal c41 besides cross-c41.

Click to expand...

Yes, you can. If you buy the Fuji 5L C41 kit, that's how it's designed to work instead of replenishment. They give a table of 5 different times to use for each batch of developer, and then it is discarded. Using the Fuji table as a guide and assuming that chemistry designed for replenishment degrades at a similar rate, I would suggest running the discarded developer for about 3:30 (somewhere between 3:25 and 3:40 depending on how many rolls per litre it processed before being discarded during replenishment) instead of 3:15 to achieve a fairly normal C41 process.

Certainly if you want to cross-process, the discard-liquid is perfectly good for that. Since you're expecting weird colours & contrast anyway due to chemistry mismatch then temp and time control are pretty unimportant, so go for it.