Jobo ATL 1000 plumbing help

tim_walls · Mar 7, 2009

Hi all,

I have a Jobo ATL-1000 from eBay - actually I've had it for ages, but I've only just got enough plumbing done in the darkroom to be to plumb it up - and I'm having some issues with the plumbing; and the drains in particular...

I've got a 38C water source now (last weekend's plumbing finally comes good) and the inlet side of things is great. I've also hooked up the two outlet pipes to washing machine hoses and routed them to the drain, and they seem to do the right thing.

The thing is, there's a third outlet pipe coming out of the machine, immediately 'above' the two hoses. When I run the machine through a cleaning wash, a not inconsiderable amount of water comes out flooding the place - the two normal hoses both seem to be pumping out water when you'd expect though.

As far as I can see the manual on the web makes no mention of this third drain - what am I meant to do with it?! I can't see any way of hooking a hose up to it without fouling the other two...

Tom Kershaw · Mar 7, 2009

Could you post a photo?

Tom.

tim_walls · Mar 7, 2009

Tom Kershaw said:
Could you post a photo?

Tom.

Good thinking . A rubbish cameraphone shot I'm afraid, but hopefully you can see the water hose hooked up on the left and the chemicals hose hooked up on the right. Above the chemical waste hose is this other black tube - same dimensions as the other two hookups - which seems to be the 'soak the desk' feature.

tim_walls · Mar 7, 2009

Oops, the attachment didn't seem to take, I'll try again...

Tom Kershaw · Mar 7, 2009

No attachment

Tom.

Tom Kershaw · Mar 7, 2009

What about one of those right angle pipe fittings? Is the space too narrow to fit another pipe in a downwards orientation? The water connections on my ATL-2300 are different.

Tom.

Trond · Mar 7, 2009

I just checked with mine ATL-1000, and it also has the third outlet, but I have never seen anything coming out of it. Perhaps it's some kind of overflow protection? For the water bath perhaps?

Trond

tim_walls · Mar 7, 2009

Trond said:
I just checked with mine ATL-1000, and it also has the third outlet, but I have never seen anything coming out of it. Perhaps it's some kind of overflow protection? For the water bath perhaps?

Trond

That's sort of what I'd assumed it was - which is why I didn't plumb it up - but the water bath has been empty...

I'll try running a few more cleaning runs through it; maybe the outlet pipes are gunked up causing them to backflow or something. If the problem doesn't go away after a few runs through I'll have to dismantle it.

Unfortunately just taking off the top cover doesn't seem to give any access to that - a major dismantling job looks to be needed...

(Alternatively I'll just stick a cork in it .)

tim_walls · Mar 7, 2009

Trond said:
I just checked with mine ATL-1000, and it also has the third outlet, but I have never seen anything coming out of it. Perhaps it's some kind of overflow protection? For the water bath perhaps?

Well, emboldened by the knowledge that it wasn't 'normal' for water to come out of that pipe, I had the thing apart.

Internally the thing drains into a kind of sump type arrangement, and the two waste pipes hook into this (there's a mechanically operated 'lever' which diverts the flow from one half of the sump to the other, but actually liquid would be free to flow down both if one backs up.) At the top of the sump is an overflow pipe which is that third connection - this is obviously to prevent liquids overflowing into the rest of the body where the electrical gubbins lives (so putting a cork in it probably not the best idea.)

I guess it's just a matter of my drain pipes not being 'direct' enough - anything which impedes the drain however little is going to cause the thing to back up and then drain out of the overflow.

Time to take a jigsaw to the table tomorrow to see if I can make a more direct exit route for the drain pipes...

MikeSeb · Mar 7, 2009

Tim, my ATL-1000 and ATL-1500 both would back up and flood the tabletop with the slightest outflow obstruction. The drain hoses need to go STRAIGHT out of the back of the machine, parallel to its bottom, before going into your sink or drain or wherever. They can't either rise up or dip down and then up as they'll backflow. That is likely the reason you had problems.

Renato Tonelli · Mar 7, 2009

What Mike says. (Mike - I haven't forgotten your excellent advice when I was setting up my ATL-15OO!)

Make sure the processor is level all around.

I have two ATL-1500's and on one of them I have resorted to "plugging up" the offending black outlet with a wine bottle cork (the plastic type, not the natural cork type). Once in a while enough water would come out so I resorted to this extreme measure. I have checked the insides of the machine to see if this is causing problems and so far it has worked out.

tim_walls · Mar 8, 2009

Thanks Mike, Renato. I'm going to pop round to my local DIY shop this afternoon to see if they have any hole saw bits - if not it's the jigsaw. Either way hopefully I should be able to get a straight drop from the processor to the drain by cutting a suitable hole in the bench.

Fingers crossed I might be able to develop my first rolls of E6 in about 8 months (since I moved into this house) this afternoon... I'm getting quite excited

Tom Kershaw · Mar 8, 2009

Tim,

Which E6 kit will you use?

Tom.

tim_walls · Mar 8, 2009

Well, the good news was that the local DIY shop did sell hole saws, so the drain hoses now take a much more direct route - and that's fixed the problem!

After several wash cycles, a couple of rolls from my 'to do' pile are going through as a test.

tim_walls · Mar 8, 2009

Tom Kershaw said:
Which E6 kit will you use?

Tom - I'm using the Kodak 5 litre single-use kit. I've used these for a while with Jobo tanks and the CPE-2 I used before getting the ATL, with perfect (by my standards) results.

I'd probably still be using the CPE-2 if its heating element hadn't broken - I retrofitted a Nova darkroom glass water heater but it took an eternity to heat the CPE-2 and chemicals up, which became a real chore.

Trond · Mar 9, 2009

tim_walls said:
Fingers crossed I might be able to develop my first rolls of E6 in about 8 months (since I moved into this house) this afternoon... I'm getting quite excited

And how did they turn out?

Trond

tim_walls · Mar 9, 2009

Trond said:
And how did they turn out?

Looking good .

Unfortunately I work 200 miles from home, and by the time they'd dried I only had time to cut and sleeve them and take a quick look at the first strip of six, so hard to make an overly critical evaluation - but no obvious processing flaws at all.

Here's a scan I grabbed from that first strip last night:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

A proper look is going to have to wait 'til I get home at the end of the week .

Thanks for the assistance everyone, by the way!

Jobo ATL 1000 plumbing help

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