Looking for a 500ml dev tank with agitation stick

I want to develop 2 slide films at the time, and since my kit manuals are for 0.5L and 1L working solutions only, I'm limited to those. 1L is too much for the number of films I have, so I'm down to 0.5L.

Since the tank is in the ater during development, I use agitation stick rather than inversions, and I'd prefer to keep this method as it seems to work. I don't quite imagine taking the tank out of bath every 15s and keeping the temperature.

However, Paterson System 4 tank requires ~600ml for 2 rolls. I have another tank, an old Kaiser which is not sold any more with one reel which does work with 500ml, but the reel shaft has no "tooth" for agitation stick (don't know how that thing is called?). I thought of improvising something, but not sure if using either CA or epoxy glue is a good idea (possible contamination).

There are not many tanks on the market, either new or used, and for those which are, there are no specifications available. It seems most (all?) of the current tanks require more than 500ml, or don't have agitation stick.

Jobo, for example, seems small enough, but is meant for inversions. From the used ones, Jessops Universal Duo seems as it could fit, but I can't find any volume information.

Thanks for any suggestions!

But why do you need an agitation stick and do not just invert the tank?

(Sorry, I overlooked that you already gave the answer above...)

Mainly because I don't want to take it out of the water bath, to keep the temperature constant (color is very temperature sensitive). Inverting in bath seems clumsy, as the bath is quite crowded with bottles...

You could use a roller base and manually rotate the drum. That would require less solution (240mm for a Jobo tank and two x 35mm or 2x120) and still keep the drum in water. Just like a Jobo processor, without the motor.

Jobo reels are designed so that the reels don't rotate within the drum so won't work with a stick but you could easily rig up some rollers and manually rotate the drum in the water bath.

You can buy roller bases but it would be quite easy to make One quite cheaply.

If you put your tank in a larger tank with tempered water, the temperature loss in the moment of inverting should be negligable.

Even a tank with different diameters can be rolled on plain surface, using guides, so a roller base is not necessary. But with a plain table the tempering issue arises.

As I said, I'm quite happy with the current process and the results (for the most part at least). I would rather not introduce new variables, but just upgrade what works to 2 reels.

Dear jernejk,

Buy this one. I used this model for several years before getting a Jobo system and it worked great. One 35mm roll requires 375cc, 2 requires 650cc. One 120 or 200 roll requires 590cc. It will not hold the entire liter if you mix up that volume but obviously you can simply return the chemicals to the bottle and just add up the developed rolls.

Good luck,

Neal Wydra

Thanks Neal, but I'm really looking for something which requires 0.5l with two reels, as that's the sweetspot for my kit/needs. I could mix 1L with the Paterson tank I have, but then I'd need to process 12 films in about 2-4 weeks, or the chems will go bad.

I think you have two choices: Use more than 0.5L or switch to rotary processing.

Or get another reel for kaiser and hack it to be able to use agitation stick. It's actually a pretty good tank and it has served me for a number of years. Sadly not available any more.

This is how they look (image from ebay).

I have a ton of JOBO 1500 series tanks and reels. I believe it uses around 500ml for two. They are pretty expensive though.

When I develop color film I use stainless steel tanks and reels. I know four rolls in a steel tank are covered easily by 1 liter, so two should easily be covered by 500ml.

You can just pick up the tank, invert it, then put it back in the water bath. No problems. You don't need to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

I agree with Patrick Robert James, but if really a plastic tank with an agitation rod look on line to see if you can find an old Yankee tank, finding one with a agitation rod could take time. By the way the rod is also an inaccurate thermometer, not good enough for color work. Also has a inversion cap so you can either use the rod or invert. Sort of an odd design, I have one, don't use it much, I use Unicolor tanks, reels and motor base.

A tank that that would cover two 35mm reels with just 500ml of solution would have small reels - steel reels are an example.
If I couldn't invert, I would use a combination of figure eight agitation and moving the tank up and down about two inches (50 mm) at a time.

Jobo 1520 tanks need a min of 485ml for inversion.

Patrick Robert James said:

I have a ton of JOBO 1500 series tanks and reels. I believe it uses around 500ml for two. They are pretty expensive though.

When I develop color film I use stainless steel tanks and reels. I know four rolls in a steel tank are covered easily by 1 liter, so two should easily be covered by 500ml.

You can just pick up the tank, invert it, then put it back in the water bath. No problems. You don't need to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

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I think it's 485ml min volume for inversion in a 1520 tank.

But the OP insists he wants to use the stick to turn the reels which won't work with a Jobo as the reels are designed such that they don't rotate within the drum or they'd be no good for rotary processing.

I have routinely inverted a two reel tank without any problems and so have many others. I really can't see why there is a problem.

Gerald C Koch said:

I have routinely inverted a two reel tank without any problems and so have many others. I really can't see why there is a problem.

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Me too, until I got a Jobo.

My guess would be that inversion is the most common agitation method. By a large margin.

My sense is that the OP is worried about temperature change during inversion.
I think that he/she may be over-estimating the extent of that "problem".

Yeah, temperature change and it seems like the process gets more complicated. With the stick, I can agitate with my left hand and check/adjust temperatrue with my right hand. Can't imagine that with inversions.

Maybe I'll go for the 3rd option and mix 0.6L of chemicals. It should not be far from 0.5L in terms of adjustments. Of course I'll end up with too few concentrates to make the final batch, but I can fill to 0.6L with a fresh set. Seems like the most reasonable thing to do under my circumstances.

jernejk said:

Seems like the most reasonable thing to do under my circumstances

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Nobody can tell you how to weigh up your options, but it would seem to be the sensible option. It's a shame the tank you wanted doesn't appear to exist. The Jobo comes close in size but obviously not in 'twiddlability' (to use the technical term). ;-)