Jobo ATL not pumping chemicals

[Baxter Bradford]

Hello and Help please!!

I have been trying to get my ATL-2300 to work properly since recently installing it.

A recurring fault is that the chemicals are not being pumped into the drum. The machine gives a beeping noise and error message that Chemicals have not been successfully pumped. By pressing the 'Start' button it then seems to reactivate the pump and the chemicals are successfully transferred into the drum.

I have renewed the red o-ring seals, tested using water in the bottles with no film in the drum with no problems. However as soon as I use E6 (3 bath) chemistry and place film in the drum the fault recurs. I have also removed the cover and inspected the hose-line which all seem properly secured and no damage which might cause a leak.

Clearly something is not right and I cannot face hanging around to perform the button pressing at every stage - it rather defeats the object of having an Automatic processor!

Originally I thought I had a rogue lid (all had worked fine in my ATL-1000), despite it visually looking like my other ones. I performed successful runs with other lids with water, but this cannot be the case since the problem has just returned using a different lid.

Any ideas on things I can check? The manual doesn't give any indication as to where the problem might lie. Neither could I find anything on Jobo-USA website.

 

[Wally H]

I've the ATL2000 so I'm not sure any issue I had would translate directly.

I had this type of issue when:

1) The o-ring on the first chemical tank failed.

2) when I put a small tank on and set the volumes to 1,000ml (the small tanks don't hold that much, only 750ml I think)

 

[Baxter Bradford]

Thanks Wally,

I did have the small (2523) tank in place and yes the 'Rest' volume was set at 1000ml. So will reinspect rings and try a lower volume later today. Although cannot understand the inconsistency between running with water and proper E6 chemicals!

 

[L Gebhardt]

Although cannot understand the inconsistency between running with water and proper E6 chemicals!

There isn't any way I can think of that the chemicals in the bottles would have any effect. It simply pumps air into the bottles, so I suspect you will see the same thing with water eventually. I haven't look at the air pump in my 2000, but I would check for a corroded wiring connection, broken wire, etc.

 

[Wally H]

FWIW: One more thought I had about my replacing the o ring was that it was on the temperature probe that the o ring failed, not the chemical tube.

 

[Baxter Bradford]

I inspected the O ring seals around the bottles Wally. They seemed ok, but to be sure to effect a good seal, I put a fillet of viscous silicone grease around the top. I then moved away from the Auto 2523 setting and altered rest volume to 700ml appreciating that I was altering more than one thing at a time and thus not the purists method of fault finding. But then with an intermittent fault (water vs E6 chems, and also not getting error message on every chemical bath) reckoned that could save time and reinvestigate once my confidence levels are higher.

Sure enough this time the fault occured just on Chem 1 tank when running through with water. So am still no nearer to resolving the problem. Larry, the wires seemed ok connection wise. But will have another look later on when the machine is empty. Removing the cover with water in the bath, makes the tanks try to escape with their buoyancy thus placing further strain on the chemical bottle tubing.

Having done some Google searching, I am still not sure if I have found the darkroom user group mentioned in an email sent to me in response to this thread. So if anyone has a link for another source of experience, I would be very keen to pursue that avenue too.

The small amount of processing I have managed subsequently has so far been streak free; but still not able to go away and trust the machine to deliver.

 

[Baxter Bradford]

I have now fixed the fault having spoken to
a very helpful lady on the JOBO Analogue Support desk in Germany.

The fault was due to a malfunctioning Flow sensor used to detect fluid transferring through the lift arm.

The fix is as follows

Connect machine to power, but leave switched off.

Press Enter, Start and Power on buttons simultaneously. This brings up
the Service Menu on which there are a great many things - 14 items I
think.

Scroll down to No 11- Fill sensor. Press Enter, then toggle using up or
down arrow to change from With to W/O. Press Enter.

Press Power Off button.

Repair Complete!!!!

I have just run a test with water in all 3 bottles and the
machine pumped all chemicals in all bottles through with no errors.
It does mean that I have to fill with correct volume of chemicals for
each run. However this was part of my routine anyway in order to
conserve E6 chemicals.

For those with ATL2X00 machines, this Service menu could be the place
to start when things go wrong. I shall look there first in preference
to experiencing similar hassle to yesterdays palaver when I stripped the machine down, reassembled it and found that the fault was still present. I only hope that
I haven't written this in haste!

Here is the link to the Google Darkroom users group where I found several very helpful people who contributed to the fault finding.
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.photo.darkroom?hl=en

 

[roteague]

Thanks for passing this along Baxter. I'm glad you got your unit fixed - now it is time to rock & roll with E6 processing !!!

 

[Clueless]

Me too, thanks you for sharing a couple of treasues

Did the analogue German group use English too?

 

[Baxter Bradford]

I phoned the German Analogue support desk, the lady answered in German and then switched immediately to fluent English. She was helpful and impressive. I couldn't believe that the solution was so simple and effective.

 

[L Gebhardt]

Glad you got it "fixed". Did they give you a price on the new part? Just curious, as for my workflow I would need that sensor.

 

[Baxter Bradford]

No!

When on the phone to the UK importer (Firstcall) trying to find out about obtaining a parts diagram, prices and if anyone services Jobos in UK to which the sorry fact is not unless you've bought from them and it is not 'on-site' either.

Not having the correct part number, the chap searched for Flow sensor and eventually came up with a part for another machine which included sensor and circuit board and that was £590..... at which point I thought the machine was heading for the bin. They were unable to provide the parts diagram, again referring to Help desk in Germany. Since the fix the lady provided suited my needs, I didn't ask for it.