Idea: Cooler, aquarium thermostat, stainless steel bottles?

I've just been given the green light from my wife to start developing again, and thinking about a compact, cheap, and clever setup...
(1) A cheap water cooler, filled with enough water to mostly submerge the bottles and developing tank (but not all the way), kept clean with a teaspoon of bleach. (~50 bucks)
(2) An aquarium thermostat and temperature controller, to regulate the temperature (~50 bucks)
(3) Glass thermometers to double-check the temperature (~10 bucks)
(4) Stainless steel camping flasks to store light sensitive solutions (~40 bucks, more if many solutions are kept)
(5) Large 5L plastic tank to store de-ionized water (~20 bucks)
(6) Miscellaneous measuring cups (~10 bucks)
(7) Dark bag for loading film onto reels (~30 bucks)
(8) Stainless steel developing tank (~50 bucks)
(9) Small tub to handle liquids, manage spills, etc.. (~10 bucks)

Seems to add up to ~270 bucks (call it ~300 bucks), or what I would usually pay to develop 40-ish rolls of 35mm (36 exp.). Because it has been a while since I've done anything like this, I wanted to ask...

Is there anything to watch out for here, is this half-baked or does it sound reasonable? For example, I know that stainless steel flasks are supposed to be "stainless" but maybe there is some potential for cheaper varieties to react with developing solutions? Has anyone tried something like this, and run up against obstacles or hurdles that I can't foresee?

If you are using your stainless just to hold your solutions for processing you should be fine, but be sure to label them well, wash them after use, and never, ever reuse for drinking! One of the reasons I don't like re-purposing kitchen stuff for the darkroom. You could just put your chemicals into bottles. They will take longer to "temper" but will be fine once they get to working temperature.

You also need a aquarium water pump to keep the water circulating . you can find both the heater and pump on Amazon or Ebay. Stainless steel for photochemical work is supposed to be type 316-I rather doubt camping flasks are made of that.

Is this for colour film, or black and white?
If it is for black and white, and your room temperature doesn't vary to the extremes, just do your processing at room temperature, with the usual adjustments of development time to compensate for variances in ambient temperature.

If you need such a thing as an aquarium heater I am assuming this is C41 developing. Can you obtain an aquarium heater that will achieve 100F as this is way too hot for fish? A lower temperature might be OK but some will say there is the risk of colour crossover. It might depend on how close to 100F you can get.

If it is B&W developing then unless you are doing the development in an unheated room I'd have thought the heater is unnecessary

pentaxuser

Or, you could do what I did for a lot less money. I bought an Igloo MaxCold cooler (with insulation) for $15 and fill it from the tap with 70 degree water and put all my chemistry/tank in that bath. I monitored the temp the first few times and it only varied 0.1 F (dropped to 69.9 from 70) over 30 minutes. Ambient room temp was 66 F.

I bought the 7 qt. version and the lid goes a long way in stabilizing the ambient temperature of the bath. There is a larger version available for a couple more bucks.

I struggled for a long time with trying to maintain temperature. The temperature in my darkroom fluctuates quite a bit over the seasons. Eventually, I gave in a got a Jobo, but if you are only doing b&w roll film, then I think most of what you suggest will work quite well.

If the air temperature in the space where you will develop film is constant throughout the year, and is neither too high nor too low (somewhere close to 20C), then heating up and maintaining the temperature of chemistry is not a big problem at all. Remember that for b&w, you only have to have fine control over the developer (and pre-wash, if you use it). If your room temperature is constant and reasonable, then a few degrees one way or the other with stop, fix, and HCA is not a big deal.

What I did was very similar to your suggestions. I used two large buckets (and I mean really large). The first bucket was to temper the chemistry, all in 1 litre bottles: pre-wash, developer, stop, fix, and HCA. You will find, as I did, that for this process, it is best to use smaller bottles, as full as possible, otherwise they float and swim around like fish in a pond. The second bucket was for immersing (partially) the development tank between agitations. Once my developer was at the required temperature, I poured it into the tank, agitated, and held the tank as deeply in the second bucket as possible, to keep it at the correct temperature. Some people start with a slightly higher temperature, assuming that this will drop over the development time and thus “average out.” I found that if the bucket is large enough, the water will be quite stable in terms of temperature for even fairly long development times. I have developed roll film in this way for as long as 15 minutes and the temperature was stable. I also used rubber gloves so the warmth of my hands did not contribute to a rise in temperature.

The only other suggestion I would make depends on your vision. If you have Old Guy eyes, then get thermometers which are easy to read. A modern electronic thermometer with digital readout is a little more expensive than the old photographic thermometers, but much, much easier to read.

I'm pretty serious about controlling my process, but for B&W film, I get a liter of distilled to 20°c - usually stick a pitcher in the fridge an hour before, and mix the room temp jug and the chilled into a graduate - just takes a minute. I do a pre-wash/soak to get everything to temp, and the developer stays at 20° through that process. I've never see the developer temp fluctuate more than barely a degree when developing (I don't do any "stand" stuff, reasonable times). I don't need a water bath or anything like that, I've found if the room temp is comfortable, the temps stay stable.

If I forgot to pre-chill the distilled, I have a sort of bucket that I can put ice water in and let the water cool while I load the reels. But that's a hassle compared to just having a gallon of cold distilled handy - it's really a quick process.

When I did E6, it was another story of course. For B&W, you may be overthinking things!

Maybe we need the OP to tell us whether he is doing trad B&W or C41?

pentaxuser.

NikonDude said:

Seems to add up to ~270 bucks (call it ~300 bucks),

Click to expand...

They don't make it anymore, but I got my Jobo tempering bath for less then that. If you are going to agitate by hand, this TBE is nice because there is no motor to burn out.

NikonDude said:

I've just been given the green light from my wife to start developing again, and thinking about a compact, cheap, and clever setup...
(1) A cheap water cooler, filled with enough water to mostly submerge the bottles and developing tank (but not all the way), kept clean with a teaspoon of bleach. (~50 bucks)
(2) An aquarium thermostat and temperature controller, to regulate the temperature (~50 bucks)
(3) Glass thermometers to double-check the temperature (~10 bucks)
(4) Stainless steel camping flasks to store light sensitive solutions (~40 bucks, more if many solutions are kept)
(5) Large 5L plastic tank to store de-ionized water (~20 bucks)
(6) Miscellaneous measuring cups (~10 bucks)
(7) Dark bag for loading film onto reels (~30 bucks)
(8) Stainless steel developing tank (~50 bucks)
(9) Small tub to handle liquids, manage spills, etc.. (~10 bucks)

Seems to add up to ~270 bucks (call it ~300 bucks), or what I would usually pay to develop 40-ish rolls of 35mm (36 exp.). Because it has been a while since I've done anything like this, I wanted to ask...

Is there anything to watch out for here, is this half-baked or does it sound reasonable? For example, I know that stainless steel flasks are supposed to be "stainless" but maybe there is some potential for cheaper varieties to react with developing solutions? Has anyone tried something like this, and run up against obstacles or hurdles that I can't foresee?

Click to expand...

Make sure the stainless is GOOD quality; the lesser stuff can corrode in contact with the more acidic/basic solutions. Had some Taiwanese tanks do that to me.

I'm not fancy. I could spend more money on it but why?
Of course if you're doing B&W just work at a comfortable room temperature and you'll be fine, just like the people above have suggested (use the Ilford temperature/time chart for corrections).
If you're doing color at 100 f, my method is stupid simple, cheap and efficient IMO. I use a fairly large, deep, table bussing bin and fill it with 110 f water. I store my chems in plastic soda bottles (free) and drop them in the water. I put a thermometer in the bath and watch the temp. I open the developer bottle and drop in a thermometer there and wait for it to rise to 100 or more. If it goes over I wait awhile for it to drop to the desired temp. Then I start processing. I use an insulated unidrum film tank so I don't worry about the temp. If I were using a regular tank I would just let it rest in the tempering bath between agitation cycles. If the temperature drops too low I swish around an immersion heater I got from Amazon for $10. The only things I would spend money on is the bussing tray and heater to replicate this set up. Of course you need a changing bag and tank to get started.

Dear NikonDude,

Enjoy your return to developing. Personally, I love that first look on the light table of freshly developed negatives.

Neal Wydra

M Carter said:

.... I get a liter of distilled to 20°c - usually stick a pitcher in the fridge an hour before, and mix the room temp jug and the chilled into a graduate!

Click to expand...

That may work in Texas, but up here we use a microwave, and mix the "room temp jug" with the warmed-up water, to get to our 20C.
That's in Summer. The other nine months, we nuke the whole lot to get it to 20C.

barzune said:

That may work in Texas, but up here we use a microwave, and mix the "room temp jug" with the warmed-up water, to get to our 20C.
That's in Summer. The other nine months, we nuke the whole lot to get it to 20C.

Click to expand...

It works the same way with dogs. Darwin arranged that the Malamout loses a certain amount of hair every few degrees of latitude and decreases in size so it generates less heat. Just over the Rio Grande from El Paso it eventually becomes a Chihuahua

pentaxuser

Dear All,

Many thanks for the responses, I am interested in doing all kinds of developing, from color C41 to monochrome (and C41 monochrome too!). After reading and thinking a bit, it seems that I might be making this too complicated...starting to prefer setting up a simple igloo cooler to begin and adding other components only as necessary. I might very well find that I don't need the heater and other stuff, just stick to the basics. Also very good to know about the stainless steel quality issues, I suspected as much...

...hopefully I can post some successful examples after I run the first batch. A friend just gave me a whole box of old expired BW400CN from the back corner of their garage fridge, a good place to begin. I shot a few test rolls from this batch, came out quite grainy, but useable for certain shots...and they are cheap!

I got two aquarium heater tubes to tinker with. The one seemingly without any thermostat could be regulated by external control. But the regulated one with thermostat to be set, cannot be set high enough (C-41), and I still did not dare to open that sealing cap to get inside.

I process still and movie film in a rural basement environment which is always quite cool. I use a large aquarium heater with thermostat, which by the way, does go to 100F and beyound (I have tropical fish and some fish do require very warm water, especially if treating for disease. No, I don't use the same heater in an aquarium!) in a large flat tray that covers about a third of the depth of clear plastic non air permeable bottles. Since I use developers on a one-shot basis I am not concerned about bottle transparency while processing. I begin heating chemicals about an hour or two before starting work. I should note that for the past several years I process only B/W and leave color slide work to professional labs although I also processed that when I had my JOBO. I also use the development temperature conversion chart when necessary.

I have had good luck with a cheap washing bucket and an expensive (relatively) sous vide immersion heater and circulator. My unit was $150, but there are cheaper ones available. I don't have to think about the control system or using another pump for circulation. The sole purpose in life of the sous vide unit is to control a water bath to a very precise temperature, which is kind of the point of color development. I chose the Jobo wide mouth bottles for the chemicals, since they are design for photo chemicals so I didn't need to think about that either.

Anova sous vide unit: ~$150
1L Jobo wide mouth bottle: $12.50 x 5 = $62.50
Total: $212.50

I like that lid for the Jobo temperating bath. I might try to make something like that to cover my bucket.

Note that you could get started with a sub-set of the equipment list for doing just B&W. This would allow you to break up your expenses into at least a couple of purchases while still being useful.