My new lab arrived

unwantedfocus · Oct 12, 2021

Hello people,

my lab just arrived, super happy about it. I got it super cheap from an older Gentlemen who got rid of his old photo equipment. Included in the set it:

Minolta Color Enlarger II
Minolta Digital Timer
Minolta Color Analyzer II
Minolta Transformator
Minolta 35mm carrier
Minolta 35mm slide carrier
Enlarger lens is a Rodenstock ROGONAR-S 50mm f/2,8 is it any good?
Durst COMOT
Durst COTERM
Durst CODRUm 206
Jobodrum 2840
JOBO colorprocessor CPE2
JOBO Minilux Color
Paterson RC Print Squeegee
Tetnal Filter Calculator
Some thermostats
and so on....

There were also tons of documentation with it for each film stock and papers he used in handwriting. I scanned some manuals attached below for anyone interested. there were magazines which I didn't scan if anyone is interested I can scan them too from JOBO and a German Lab magazine which lists various enlargers.

Since its a lot of new stuff I have to make some room I'm not a fan or hoarding. Need a new drum sadly to develop film in the CPE2, I seen people praising this lift arm which costs a fortune is the CPE2 even worth to develop film or are the results better by hand agitation? (seen some discussion about it online)

Which kind of annoys me is the 600ml bottles, the motor can only handle certain amount of weight or something and then you are limited in the amount of rolls you can develop. I read about this topic here. I guess I will follow the instructions from CatLABS and see how it goes.

Also the Minolta Color Analyzer II was sold in Europe according to the manual in Germany, France, Italy if I'm not mistaken. In the Manual you can see US versions came with a on/off switch on the enlarger power cable. Also the Enlarger came with a US plug which you have to plug into the Transformer and the Transformer has a EU plug.

If anybody has some tips on how to run the new setup or things I should keep an eye out for please do!

Thanks.

Neal · Oct 12, 2021

Congratulations! Nice setup.

mshchem · Oct 12, 2021

That looks great. I think you are ready to go. The documentation is invaluable!

M Carter · Oct 12, 2021

The Roganar was a more consumer/hobbyist lens, but - will you notice a difference in small prints? Maybe not. Upgrading to a 6-element lens is pretty affordable these days (Nikkor, Fuji, Rodagon, Componon-S) if you feel you're missing something. I wouldn't sweat it for now.

Paul Howell · Oct 12, 2021

Hate to second guess the guy you bought the lot from, just don't understand why he spent a lot money and used a 3 element lens.

unwantedfocus · Oct 12, 2021

Neal said:
Congratulations! Nice setup.

Thank you!

M Carter said:
The Roganar was a more consumer/hobbyist lens, but - will you notice a difference in small prints? Maybe not. Upgrading to a 6-element lens is pretty affordable these days (Nikkor, Fuji, Rodagon, Componon-S) if you feel you're missing something. I wouldn't sweat it for now.

I guess ill do at least 1 run with the lens to see the difference.

Paul Howell said:
Hate to second guess the guy you bought the lot from, just don't understand why he spent a lot money and used a 3 element lens.

Maybe there were other lenses who knows.

I attached a image of the lens, its better than nothing I'm not ungrateful i paid 100 bucks for the whole kit which is insane, also there were 2 ads in there about film prices from the year 1986.

AgX · Oct 12, 2021

unwantedfocus said:
I guess ill do at least 1 run with the lens to see the difference.

Rodenstock advise enl. factor 2-10 and F11

On the other hand quite some guys here seem to be spoild by cheap used high-end lenses available now...
Rodenstock even recently advised Tessar type enlarging lenses for dedicated commercial labs.

DonW · Oct 12, 2021

For most of the photos I see posted here a three element lens does them justice

You got a great system there! Have fun with it

ic-racer · Oct 13, 2021

Nice setup. I have a Minolta Mod III enlarger I got in 1975 and I still use it!

miha · Oct 13, 2021

Congrats! Rodagon-S, a 4-element design should be good enough, however my first lens was a Rodagon, a 3-element design and it was crap. I never understood why Rodenstock would even offer such a non performing lens.

AgX · Oct 13, 2021

miha said:
Congrats! Rodagon-S, a 4-element design should be good enough, however my first lens was a Rodagon, a 3-element design and it was crap.

A Rodagon always was of double-Gauss design, thus high-end.
What you reter to instead is the Rogonar, a 3-element lens.

Thus there also was no Radagon-S but a Rogonar-S, a Tessar type.

(who gave names to all those animals...?)

miha · Oct 13, 2021

@AgX, Indeed, Rogonar-S / Rogonar. Not Rodagon.

Paul Howell · Oct 13, 2021

A hundred bucks, what a buy.

unwantedfocus · Oct 14, 2021

Paul Howell said:
A hundred bucks, what a buy.

Yeah, I ain't complaining, super happy about it.

I wanted to add the PDF for the CPE-2 manual but file size limit is 2mb. Attached pics instead!! And since I can only attach 15 images I can't be bothered anymore.

koraks · Oct 17, 2021

unwantedfocus said:
Since its a lot of new stuff I have to make some room I'm not a fan or hoarding. Need a new drum sadly to develop film in the CPE2, I seen people praising this lift arm which costs a fortune is the CPE2 even worth to develop film or are the results better by hand agitation? (seen some discussion about it online)

Which kind of annoys me is the 600ml bottles, the motor can only handle certain amount of weight or something and then you are limited in the amount of rolls you can develop.

I use a CPE for most of my film development. I'm not sure what your worried about in terms of the 600ml 'limitation'. I generally do a single 120 or at most 2x 135 at a time, or 6 sheets of 4x5". Since 2x135 in a 1520 tank only requires something like 250ml, it's still way less than what the motor can turn. Btw, the fluid volume/weight is not necessarily the limiting factor; if you use the bigger tanks such as the 29xx series, the friction of the tank against the inset with the two little white wheels and the tank potentially scraping against the insert where the bottles go into the water jacket are a way bigger limiting factor than the ~600g of liquid in the tank. Either way, just give it a go, don't worry about it; the CPE2 is a perfectly functional machine. On mine the only annoying defect is that the polyfuse that protects the motor from burning out under too high loads has died; I bridged it (bad practice of course...) and have yet to replace it (one of these days...)

Manual agitation is of course fine, but not necessarily better or worse than using something like your CPE2.

€ 100 is a steal for that CPE2; it's nice you got some other stuff thrown in as well

PS: discard that brown harmonica bottle; it's a piece of crap. Prone to leak and more importantly impossible to clean.

unwantedfocus · Oct 17, 2021

koraks said:
I use a CPE for most of my film development. I'm not sure what your worried about in terms of the 600ml 'limitation'. I generally do a single 120 or at most 2x 135 at a time, or 6 sheets of 4x5". Since 2x135 in a 1520 tank only requires something like 250ml, it's still way less than what the motor can turn. Btw, the fluid volume/weight is not necessarily the limiting factor; if you use the bigger tanks such as the 29xx series, the friction of the tank against the inset with the two little white wheels and the tank potentially scraping against the insert where the bottles go into the water jacket are a way bigger limiting factor than the ~600g of liquid in the tank. Either way, just give it a go, don't worry about it; the CPE2 is a perfectly functional machine. On mine the only annoying defect is that the polyfuse that protects the motor from burning out under too high loads has died; I bridged it (bad practice of course...) and have yet to replace it (one of these days...)

Manual agitation is of course fine, but not necessarily better or worse than using something like your CPE2.

€ 100 is a steal for that CPE2; it's nice you got some other stuff thrown in as well

PS: discard that brown harmonica bottle; it's a piece of crap. Prone to leak and more importantly impossible to clean.

You are right did not consider that you need way less solution to develop. I think the CPE2 only had one previous owner so I hope it doesn't break after a couple of times using it.

I love my agitation tanks i used to have paterson but I like the Tanks and reels from jobo more (attached an image) the reels are older ones without the red clip I don't know if I could even attach them there and if so maybe 3d print some or buy replacements, sadly the tanks have no magnet and I think I can't attach them however there was a magnet with the whole set do you have any idea what its used for?

Thanks for the tip with the bottle they never seemed appealing to me I use bottles from FOTOIMPEX (attached an image), I used to have glass bottles but I'm scared I will drop one. Storage wise I don't know which one is better I don't store chemicals that long as I used to.

RalphLambrecht · Oct 17, 2021

unwantedfocus said:
View attachment 288004

Hello people,

my lab just arrived, super happy about it. I got it super cheap from an older Gentlemen who got rid of his old photo equipment. Included in the set it:

Minolta Color Enlarger II
Minolta Digital Timer
Minolta Color Analyzer II
Minolta Transformator
Minolta 35mm carrier
Minolta 35mm slide carrier
Enlarger lens is a Rodenstock ROGONAR-S 50mm f/2,8 is it any good?
Durst COMOT
Durst COTERM
Durst CODRUm 206
Jobodrum 2840
JOBO colorprocessor CPE2
JOBO Minilux Color
Paterson RC Print Squeegee
Tetnal Filter Calculator
Some thermostats
and so on....

There were also tons of documentation with it for each film stock and papers he used in handwriting. I scanned some manuals attached below for anyone interested. there were magazines which I didn't scan if anyone is interested I can scan them too from JOBO and a German Lab magazine which lists various enlargers.

Since its a lot of new stuff I have to make some room I'm not a fan or hoarding. Need a new drum sadly to develop film in the CPE2, I seen people praising this lift arm which costs a fortune is the CPE2 even worth to develop film or are the results better by hand agitation? (seen some discussion about it online)

Which kind of annoys me is the 600ml bottles, the motor can only handle certain amount of weight or something and then you are limited in the amount of rolls you can develop. I read about this topic here. I guess I will follow the instructions from CatLABS and see how it goes.

Also the Minolta Color Analyzer II was sold in Europe according to the manual in Germany, France, Italy if I'm not mistaken. In the Manual you can see US versions came with a on/off switch on the enlarger power cable. Also the Enlarger came with a US plug which you have to plug into the Transformer and the Transformer has a EU plug.

If anybody has some tips on how to run the new setup or things I should keep an eye out for please do!

Thanks.

I lived happily without the arm lift for a long time. I don't think it develops a better negative but it is very consistent in its operation.

AgX · Oct 17, 2021

That blister pack likely contained a magnet to cement at a series 2000 inversion tank to make it fit for a processor (though the packaging looks more modern). The readablec part of the code confirms this.
I got no idea what that cut-out ring is for. I already wondered about it when you first showed it.

unwantedfocus · Oct 17, 2021

AgX said:
That blister pack likely contained a magnet to cement at a series 2000 inversion tank to make it fit for a processor (though the packaging looks more modern). The readablec part of the code confirms this.
I got no idea what that cut-out ring is for. I already wondered about it when you first showed it.

Thanks, you are right the No.1504 seems like the magnet I don't know if you can detach it, the small magnet is mystery. The Drum is massive. Any idea what the rubber rings are for?

AgX · Oct 17, 2021

-) the slitted tubes are to hold or seperate sheet film or papers in the respective drums with ridges inside
-) the rubber bands are for the Durst processor, to hold un-dedicated tanks/drum in position

What is that round silver-shining thing for ?

unwantedfocus · Oct 17, 2021

AgX said:
What is that round silver-shining thing for ?

Its the Magnet on the bottom of the drum.

unwantedfocus · Oct 18, 2021

I found out what the so called little "Magnet" is for.... Its to hold the heating rods/pipes...

AgX · Oct 18, 2021

The best answers are those given by oneself.

unwantedfocus · Oct 23, 2021

Developed a test roll today one knob fell off the CPE2, I tried to reattach it, didn't work it needs some pressure to engage the roll sequence. I put something heavy on the knob after turning it and the sequence was initiated and everything was working. I didn't even turn the knob with any force just a normal gentle turn.

My new lab arrived

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Neal

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