bobbysandstrom said:
Any suggestions other than a water bath or air conditioner to maintain 68F in a room with ambient air at 80F? I've read processing at this temperature isn't wise. I want to run some tests with a slosher for up to 40 minutes. I ran a temp test using water... the temp increased 3 degrees F in just 8 minutes!
A waterbath sloshes around and moves the developer tray too much. (I'm of course using minimal agitation) I don't have a dedicated air conditioner for the room.
Any suggestions?
I had the same problem in Malaysia years ago. Couldn't keep the ambient temp under 80 even with an air conditioner. Couldn't get the ambient water temp under 85.
I discovered Divided Development and have been using it ever since (no longer with film, but still with paper.) Check out the Divided D-23 formula in another thread in this forum.) D-76 can also be divided by separating the borax out into Bath B. Give it three minutes or so in each bath. Time is not critical.
I still use it for paper, and would never switch back to single-solution developer. Any developer formula can be divided by separating out the alkaline activator from everything else. With D-72 or Ansco 125 (Dektol equivalents), no time/temp controls are necessary. Roughly it takes about 15 seconds in Bath A to absorb the amount of developing agent the latent image needs. In Bath B (activator), you can leave it all day, and once it develops to completion it will not go farther. Only what was absorbed in Bath A can be activated in Bath B. Most any ambient temp will do. In colder darkrooms (60-65), it make take 30 seconds longer in Bath B to finish, or in warmer ones like yours, it'll be done in under a minute.
I've got a longer article and some formulas in the chemistry recipe section of this forum, if you care to check it out.
Larry