Jobo ATL-2 rebuilding project

pwadoc said:

I had pretty much this exact problem. You are correct that there is a magnetic sensor (hall sensor) that detects the position of the air distributor system, though the sensor itself is very unlikely to fail as it is a robust part and is encased on silicone. The most common cause for this is that the backup battery on one of the circuit boards has leaked and damaged traces that connect the component that handles the hall sensor logic. It's an easy fix if you're comfortable with electronics, but probably pretty intimidating if you're not. I believe my fix is detailed earlier in this same thread (on an ATL-1 rather than an ATL-2, the machines have identical electronics).

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Really appreciated your quickly answer, yes I'm ok for simple electronic components. I will try to change the backup battery first. thanks

luhengfoto said:

Really appreciated your quickly answer, yes I'm ok for simple electronic components. I will try to change the backup battery first. thanks

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The backup battery itself doesn't cause the problem. It's the damage to the controller board that doesn't allow the Hall effect sensor signal to disable the position motor.

pwadoc said:

The backup battery itself doesn't cause the problem. It's the damage to the controller board that doesn't allow the Hall effect sensor signal to disable the position motor.

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I changed the battery, then first time the distributer rotary stopped normally, but the screen blinking "ASA", I don't know what does it mean. and then I restart the machine again, it looks the hall sensor signal loss again. I have to check the board carefully. do you have the service manual with circuit map? thanks alot!

luhengfoto said:

I changed the battery, then first time the distributer rotary stopped normally, but the screen blinking "ASA", I don't know what does it mean. and then I restart the machine again, it looks the hall sensor signal loss again. I have to check the board carefully. do you have the service manual with circuit map? thanks alot!

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I believe the service manual for the ATL-1/2 was shared a few pages back in this thread.

yes but they are not complete, only to page 94. my atl2 is fully working now, thanks again for the advice.

pwadoc said:

I believe the service manual for the ATL-1/2 was shared a few pages back in this thread.

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Hello,
My name is Alice and i have recently bought a jobo atl 2500 for the photography school where i teach. I am finally relieved to find you and this forum to hope some answer to my problems (sorry if my english is bad, i live in France .
When i started the atl, the checks are ok but i can't change the program and none of the buttuns respond . I try to change the front panel (screen+touch) with an other on from an ATL 2200 but it didn't work. My fear is that the problem is not from the buttons but from the electronics. Could you give me an advice ? Sorry to bother you but i can't find a reparator.
Thank you a lot

Hello to all
Its a bit urgent, but Im looking for the jobo alt2 transfer gears.
Ive looked but what I found it took more than 2 weeks to receive...so im now looking for 3D files for this part.
Anyone have an .stl file for the Jobo Lift (#95200)????

Thanks

Hope you are still around @Fred of Wisconsin, you are probably most suited to entertain my odd ideas. I've acquired an ATL3 some years ago that has been in storage, it was working but needs a deep clean and potential rebuild. It will be a while until I am able to pull it out and have a play but otherwise been thinking about what needs to be done and how I could do it.

One of my more radical thoughts was the possibility of 'reversing' the orientation of the whole machine. I am working with quite limited space (inside container lab) and this kind of design where the head is on the right hand side would be more suitable fit in terms of plumbing and general access. I was intending to rebuild the cabinet from scratch as its falling apart and was thinking to face the machine backwards and re-arrange the head/guts to face forward instead.

I understand its probably not going to be as simple as I'd like to believe but curious to hear your feedback on this! Of course, others are welcome to chime in on this rather irrational idea

Cheers,
C

This is a bit of a long shot, but does anyone happen to have a broken or "needs restoration" autolab? I'm trying to restore one to working condition and learn the in and outs of them as well.

Xtraordinary Laz said:

Hello to all
Its a bit urgent, but Im looking for the jobo alt2 transfer gears.
Ive looked but what I found it took more than 2 weeks to receive...so im now looking for 3D files for this part.
Anyone have an .stl file for the Jobo Lift (#95200)????

Thanks

Click to expand...

Sorry I missed this, but this site is the only one I have ever come across that has 3D printer parts for Jobo related products, but I don't think they have what you want...

calebarchie said:

Hope you are still around @Fred of Wisconsin, you are probably most suited to entertain my odd ideas. I've acquired an ATL3 some years ago that has been in storage, it was working but needs a deep clean and potential rebuild. It will be a while until I am able to pull it out and have a play but otherwise been thinking about what needs to be done and how I could do it.

One of my more radical thoughts was the possibility of 'reversing' the orientation of the whole machine. I am working with quite limited space (inside container lab) and this kind of design where the head is on the right hand side would be more suitable fit in terms of plumbing and general access. I was intending to rebuild the cabinet from scratch as its falling apart and was thinking to face the machine backwards and re-arrange the head/guts to face forward instead.

I understand its probably not going to be as simple as I'd like to believe but curious to hear your feedback on this! Of course, others are welcome to chime in on this rather irrational idea

Cheers,
C

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Bumping this thread, hopefully @Fred of Wisconsin might see it!
Can't see when he was last online unfortunately...

I too have come across a 'for parts' Jobo ATL2 and am currently waiting for new fuses to replace the blown one I discovered in mine. It being a 1.6A fuse I assume it's something on the heater elements so I'm hoping they're not shorted.

One of the previous owners clearly had it apart, there are a lot of missing screws and globs of clear silicone everywhere but mercifully no signs of corrosion anywhere. If anyone knows where I might be able to obtain replacement screws or find the sizes of them to buy myself that would be great.

It's missing the reclamation unit and spare bottles but luckily has the original chemistry bottles and caps. If anyone still has one, could they possibly take some photos and give dimensions (ideally in metric units) so I could try and draw and print a few replacements for anyone in a similar situation.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to power this thing up to check functions and clean out the rather grubby hoses? I don't have a setup for hot water input for it yet, though I could conceivably pull out the washing machine and hook it up to mains water there.

moofy said:

I too have come across a 'for parts' Jobo ATL2 and am currently waiting for new fuses to replace the blown one I discovered in mine. It being a 1.6A fuse I assume it's something on the heater elements so I'm hoping they're not shorted.

One of the previous owners clearly had it apart, there are a lot of missing screws and globs of clear silicone everywhere but mercifully no signs of corrosion anywhere. If anyone knows where I might be able to obtain replacement screws or find the sizes of them to buy myself that would be great.

It's missing the reclamation unit and spare bottles but luckily has the original chemistry bottles and caps. If anyone still has one, could they possibly take some photos and give dimensions (ideally in metric units) so I could try and draw and print a few replacements for anyone in a similar situation.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to power this thing up to check functions and clean out the rather grubby hoses? I don't have a setup for hot water input for it yet, though I could conceivably pull out the washing machine and hook it up to mains water there.

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Moofy:
I send you a message regarding a couple of your questions. Enjoy the day.

A little update, I've had the calipers out and worked out that my missing screws, should anyone else need to order them are slotted countersunk M6 - 40mm for the main housing and one M5 - 12mm for the attachment by the lift. The rest are varying lengths of M3 with philips heads, all in stainless or in a few cases nylon.

Ordered a few on ebay, hopefully they do actually fit and stop the whole thing feeling like it's about to fall apart. Why people who disassemble things can't put everything back is beyond me.

I also had some broken hose clamps which I have sourced as 'snapper clips' if anyone wants the real thing, though I'm sure regular hose clamps will do. Some of my hoses themselves are kinked and dirty, is that worth replacement or should I wait and see if I can revive the thing first?

Managed to sort many of the problems with my ATL-2 and want to wait until I have it right before I do a write-up to help anyone else with similar problems. Currently though having a problem with my drum motor throwing a number 2 error and quickly reversing.

Managed to trace a possible problem to the transformer board and a missing component but is there anyone out there with a photo of board 94016 (with the huge mains transformer on it) who could paste it in here so I can confirm something? Also a close-up of the temperature sensor (or just the part numbers on it) on leads attached to the big heat-sink, if that's at all possible.

*edit* worked out that it's a UP72 T150 thermal fuse which is, alas, closed when working. So I'm back to trying to diagnose.

Making more progress, though every time I fix something a new one seems to come up. Maybe this can help someone in a similar position.

So far, replaced two failed tantalum capacitors, one shorting the 5v rail and blowing the fuse and one shorting the 24v rail and confusing the motor. Also found and replaced a failing ceramic which doesn't bode well for the rest of them. Have an order in to just replace as many as I can and avoid further problems there.

Also had an infuriating time diagnosing why my machine kept throwing a '2' error and rapidly switching direction of the drum motor, turns out the previous owner in their attempts at diagnosis had put the hall effect sensor cable in the wrong connector which is not very obvious when they both look the same. Looking back it seems obvious that 'mot sensor' should be, well, a motor sensor.

Currently my machine turns on, heats up and rotates but has the following problems:

a) motor speed selection isn't working. All speeds are the same, though disc mode correctly doesn't reverse itself

b) there is slight motor creep when set to run but start isn't pressed. The drum just faintly rotates

c) programs can be selected but never run, even with water at the correct temperature the cycle sits at 'temp' with a red led on the bottle temperature button and the drum just rotates to pre-warm.

Currently trying to work out where to start diagnosing next, the motor speeds seems maybe more approachable. Worked out that there are two signal lines in that vicinity (15 / 30v & Usoll) and two voltages for the motor (36v & 18v) so I will try and see if those are actually behaving. There are no more tantalum capacitors in those areas so unlikely to be another obvious fix I think.

Unsure as to why the temperature means the program won't start, it's clearly getting the correct values to display them on the display.

When were these processors manufactured? Are the electronic components still available? Seems to be quite a challenge to service. I've been following with keen interest.

mshchem said:

When were these processors manufactured? Are the electronic components still available? Seems to be quite a challenge to service. I've been following with keen interest.

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The schematics I have all have 1986/87 dates on them. They're all through hole discreet components or basic logic chips, I wouldn't be surprised if everything in it is either still made or has an updated version. Honestly really not that bad to work on, the difficult part is fault finding.

So, I have my ATL2 back to a working state, in no small part thanks to Fred.

When I started I had the same problem as a few people have had here, a 5v power rail shorted to ground through a bad 10µF tantalum capacitor on the interface control board (94 015) at C27. I would strongly suggest anyone replace this capacitor on their board.

I also had a bad value ceramic cap at C33 though this seems like an unusual failure and I'm not sure it was actually a problem. I doubt this is common.

After getting that far I then spend a while chasing down a problem with the 24v rail and traced it to a 1µF tantalum capacitor at C7 on the Interface Board Control Head (94 017), also shorted to ground.

As you can tell, there's a bit of a theme with failing tantalum capacitors here and I don't think replacing all of them would be the worst of ideas.

The third problem was really annoying, after realising that the ferrite disc had broken off the rotation motor I glued it back on but still had an error where the motor would immediately start freaking out and changing rotation rapidly. Turned out the previous person who had (badly) taken this jobo apart had connected the hall sensor for that motor in the wrong socket and I had inadvertently put it back in that same wrong place. It should be connected to ST9 - Mot. Sens. at the bottom of the board but it will, wrongly, fit in ST3 in the middle.

The fourth problem was the motor speed, I got 50 and nothing else. After pulling almost all the capacitors on the transformer board signal chain and finding zero problems I followed it back to the 74HC374N flip-flop at IC8 on the control board (94 015). Changing that chip which is cheap and easily available (in my case for a motorola non-n version, which is a direct replacement part) I got motor speeds back.

After a short detour wondering why I broke the pump, then realising I had swapped the motor and heater input wires reassembling the transformer board, it worked!

I along the way also had to find a lot of replacement hardware, something like half the fasteners on my machine were missing. They are all metric and for the most part stainless steel, though with some brass bolts on the base unit. These aren't all of them but are the ones I needed.

– Cheese head brass slotted M3 × 8mm for the base unit
– Countersunk stainless slotted M6 × 40mm for the lift head
– Countersunk stainless slotted M5 × 12mm for the lift head front
– Countersunk raised head Phillips stainless M3 × 8mm for the front panel plastic

I still need to design and build myself a chemistry recovery funnel, if anyone can submit some photos and dimensions of those I would be very grateful.

Sorry if I'm building onto a dead thread, but I'm reaching some dead ends.

I'm a university student and I've discovered that my university's darkroom has an ATL2. I've pulled it out of storage and have been in the process of repairing it. I've been trying to flush the system of old E-6 chemicals from god knows how long ago. However my critical developer bottle (1st chemistry bottle)'s seals, and piping are very eroded and need to be replaced. If possible, could someone tell me the dimensions of the rubber seals on the chemistry bottle for the delivery tube, and air tube? Additionally the dimensions for the rubber fastener and delivery tube? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've attached photos of the parts I'm referencing to make it easier:

(http://imgur.com/a/We8BzgM)

Hello... those rubber bands are impossible to find. I rebuild Jobo ATL's for a hobby and use a brand called Skog Bands, Small. They are made out of EPDM rubber and are sold by a survival company called 5col Survival Supply. Available on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0w3efCc. Others use a plastic cinch clamp to make the seal but I personally use the Skog bands because they are the closest non OEM part and work for me allowing easier hose removal for cleaning of the bottles. Hope this helps.

Random bit of information: This is a direct replacement for the water circulating pump on an ALT 2200/2300:

BOSCH 0392020024 Original Equipment Electric Auxiliary Engine Water Pump - Compatible with Select Volkswagen Beetle, Golf, Passat

This can still be found in auto parts dealer inventories for now and currently runs about $60 USD.

Dear friends!
Need your help now: could someone make a drawing or share ready-made drawings of metal gears for the Jobo ATL 2/3 etc lift ?

My master can produce, but asks for a drawing or model...

Thank you so much!