El cheapo rotary processing

In an attempt to minimise dev times (it's a fact that it's rather boring) I tried rotating my stainless steel tank with two 4x5 Era PSS sheets in it, standing up. I duct taped four cart wheels ($1 each) on a plastic tray and used this as a rotary base. I have done it before with diafine, but everything turns out printable with diafine so those tries doesn't count.

I exposed the ERA at 100 ASA and intended to use rodinal. I used the fp4+ times for rodinal 1+25 but decided to use 75% of the given time due to having exposed it at 100 and rotary processing. I used 100 ml of developing mix (another good reason for rotary processing). With a former try (with diafine, as said) the sheets got mixed up together but were still beautiful. I was a bit afraid that this might happen again. But the shots weren't that important and they could be sacrificed in the quest for consistent process.

I taped the lid to the tank with electrical tape to minimise leaks and started rotating. By putting my finger tips on the tank and pushing forward to the end of my underarm I was able to get 1.5 turns of the tank. Slowly shoving my arm back and forth for 6 3/4 minutes was also rather boring, I will try getting a base any day now.

After stop, rinse, fix, rinse I opened the tank and found the negatives to be absolutely stunning! Crisp, contrasty just as I had pictured them. There were a lot of snow in the scenes so I got a lot of high density areas, but you can still make out textures in the high lights. The shadows in the negs are also quite good. But I will see this more when I have contact printed them tonight.

So where to go from here? I may want to try rotating four sheets folded to 'tacos'. Has anybody tried that? I also wanna try using some faster developer. Maybe xtol?

Why would that be any different than a motorized base unit, except you are the motor? It sounds like a decent poor-mans uni-color base unit. I've toyed with PVC tubes in a tank of water, similar to BTZS tubes, it works very well, especially for temp control.

Rick

Back in my poor student high school days, I made my first motorized roller base for ep/2 processing out of parts from a Mecano set that had occuped many of my hours in younger times.

It functioned just fine, but needed to have the nuts tightened every day before starting to use the thing.

Your next step should be to find a way to float your tank in water and have it rotate automatically.
The water should be a heated water bath that keeps temperatures at 38C/100F. This way you can develop E-6 and C-41 in your tank as well. Heating the water is relatively easy with an aquarium heater than goes to 100F- or you can modify one to go that high by removing the stop bit on the temperature adjust dial. The hardest part is finding a way to rotate the tank while it's in the water, with a motor, without shocking yourself. Maybe setup some kind of belt drive system with the electric motor well above and outside the tank turning the belt.

Maybe I'll put little fins on the side of my tubes, and use an aquarium bubbler to power them so they spin on their own. I could use a manifold to split off several air hoses, and power a few at a time.

Rick

domaz said:

Your next step should be to find a way to float your tank in water and have it rotate automatically.
The water should be a heated water bath that keeps temperatures at 38C/100F. This way you can develop E-6 and C-41 in your tank as well. Heating the water is relatively easy with an aquarium heater than goes to 100F- or you can modify one to go that high by removing the stop bit on the temperature adjust dial. The hardest part is finding a way to rotate the tank while it's in the water, with a motor, without shocking yourself. Maybe setup some kind of belt drive system with the electric motor well above and outside the tank turning the belt.

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I'm already doing this in my head. It's sort of the goal of my experimenting. I have an ebay aquarium heater and already modified it. I can keep a decent 38-39 degrees centigrade bath.

I've read that with the help of a 100 W light bulb you can keep a black tank somewhat heated.

I've also contemplating making some sort of FOBO expert drum. It looks easy, although when I have read about it the tubes seem to be barrel shaped and some other technicalities that I will have to look into.

Another idea, if you have a motor (that reverses) you could drive a tank on a roller assembly with some sort of wheel on the top of the tank. It will have to supply some friction though, considering we're dealing with rather smooth surfaces. Maybe a RC car wheel with slicks?

I will probably go to the scrap yard and salvage a wiper motor someday. 12 V usually.

Greg Davis said:

I've been thinking of putting the Jobo wheeled base in the bottom of a deep plastic tray or container, the type you can get at Walmart or such for storage. Cut a notch out of the side for the gear on the lid of my Jobo tank to hang out of the container and connecting that to a motor base. I just haven't worked out how to make that connection, yet while still being simple to make and maintain. If I find the right stainless steel tank at a kitchen supply or military surplus store, I'll use that rather than the plastic. Actually, one of those Dead Link Removed for food service may work perfectly.

Click to expand...

Why stainless? Heavier, harder to machine and more heat loss. Honest question, not wanting to be rude.

I had to isolate my plastic container with a cut up sleeping mat to minimize (minimise for the english) heat loss. Maybe my heater has too low effect?

Me thinks an ice chest (insulated cooler) would make an ideal insulated water bath, get one with a spigot drain on the bottom for ease of emptying.

Rick