Right now I just use a Patterson tank and reels to develop my B&W film, but I'd like to get back into developing color again, especially slides because it's become so inconvenient and expensive to have them developed. Way back in the 80s I used to develop my own slides, and it was a real hassle trying to keep my bath at +/- 1/2 degree F, so it's gotten me to wonder just how difficult it would be to build a tank that would hold a bath at an exact temperature. I'm thinking it would actually be pretty easy.
In my case, I wouldn't need the rollers that some Jobo systems have or the lifts or whatever other gizmos they contain -- just room enough for the bottled chems to be put in the bath and to roll around the developing tank manually. Or maybe I could just agitate it every 30 seconds or so the way I do it with my B&W films. That would still work as well I'm thinking. I also have a couple of the tanks with the spinners for agitation. They seem to work fine for 35mm, but I've gotten streaks with my 120 when using them, so I don't use them anymore -- at least for 120.
Ever seen a heater used in reptile terrariums? It's just a large flat plastic pad with a heating element inside and with an adhesive side so it can be pasted onto the terrarium tank's bottom surface. It plugs into a wall socket and heats up to raise the air temperature far enough inside the terrarium so the reptiles are comfortable -- probably with an air temperature around 105F to 110F. This is most likely too warm for color chems I'm thinking, but one can rig a dimmer switch up to an outlet box and use this to control temperature.
So just wondering if anyone else here has had thoughts along these lines and what, if anything, you might have come up with?
In my case, I wouldn't need the rollers that some Jobo systems have or the lifts or whatever other gizmos they contain -- just room enough for the bottled chems to be put in the bath and to roll around the developing tank manually. Or maybe I could just agitate it every 30 seconds or so the way I do it with my B&W films. That would still work as well I'm thinking. I also have a couple of the tanks with the spinners for agitation. They seem to work fine for 35mm, but I've gotten streaks with my 120 when using them, so I don't use them anymore -- at least for 120.
Ever seen a heater used in reptile terrariums? It's just a large flat plastic pad with a heating element inside and with an adhesive side so it can be pasted onto the terrarium tank's bottom surface. It plugs into a wall socket and heats up to raise the air temperature far enough inside the terrarium so the reptiles are comfortable -- probably with an air temperature around 105F to 110F. This is most likely too warm for color chems I'm thinking, but one can rig a dimmer switch up to an outlet box and use this to control temperature.
So just wondering if anyone else here has had thoughts along these lines and what, if anything, you might have come up with?
