The tables don't move, you are just seeing the effect of angle imparting compression. The photo on the right shows the tray stacker from inside while the other angle is outside the door.
New Darkroom Design suggestions request
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The tables don't move, you are just seeing the effect of angle imparting compression. The photo on the right shows the tray stacker from inside while the other angle is outside the door.
A couple of shots of my dummy outlet in my darkroom. First a Zone VI safelight plugged into the upper outlet.
And second, but bottom single dummy plugged into the safelight plug on the timer feeding the upper outlet.
And second, but bottom single dummy plugged into the safelight plug on the timer feeding the upper outlet.
Hi Luis thank you for taking the time to take these. I was wondering if both of the upper outlets are controlled by the single lower one?
Also I am digging the peg board solution. That would allow a lot of flexibility on storage solutions like hanging tool and perhaps even small shelves.
claudio
Also I am digging the peg board solution. That would allow a lot of flexibility on storage solutions like hanging tool and perhaps even small shelves.
claudio
Both the upper outlets are controlled from the timer. The pegboard works great, but it wasn't my idea. It was there before I built the darkroom in the corner. It's on the two outside walls which are insulated. The two interior walls are painted plywood.
I have one line bringing in water from the house (city water supply) and I have one large filter in that line. This filters all water used in the darkroom sink. Our water is normally around Ph7 so minerals are not usually a problem. Part of the filtered water goes into a small electric hot water tank and a line from there provides hot water to the sink via one faucet. The rest of the faucets carry filtered tap water. How would I improve on this? By adding an additional filter to both hot water and tap water on the sink itself. So far, there has been no reason to do so just thought some overkill would do no harm, The main thing IMO is to filter the solids out before they do any harm........Regards!
Hello everybody,
I just started getting back to Film Photography a few months ago and I am in the process of planning a darkroom. The attached image shows the design I have come with. The reason for this post is to ask for suggestions and/or improvements from people with much more experience that I have.
The size of the room will be 8’ x 9’6”. I think the layout of the room is fairly standard. The only unusual item is the rotary processor placement. In order to fit a 7’ sink, I would put the processor on a moving platform that can move back and forth. This would give me at least partial access to the front of the last foot of the sink when the processor is pushed back to the wall. I just am not sure if that would be useful of more of a hindrance.
I have been going through the Darkroom Portraits thread to get some ideas but I would welcome any suggestions for improvement.
I will start out with 35mm negatives but in the future I hope to move to medium format. On a related subject, the Beseler enlarger that I have came without a lens. Any suggestions on a good lens for 35mm negatives?
thank you
Claudio
I know that it might be a bit late but if I were you (and anyone else building or contemplating building a wet darkroom), I would get "THE DARKROOM HANDBOOK" by Dennis Curtin and Joe DeMaio. This covers everything you need to know about designing/building the room itself, how much space will be needed in your sink for different size trays, how to show the plumber, electrician what you need. All kinds of good stuff, all of which can save you time and maybe money. You might be forced to find this used but when I reworked my darkroom in 2014/2015, I noticed that it was once again available new, only paperback this time....Regards!
Generally speaking, if one's hot water heater is of metal construction, then it will begin to corrode on the day it is installed. This corrosion increases rapidly when the sacrificial anode is eventually consumed, and if it's not replaced. Which most never do.
That means it's usually far more important to filter the hot water line than the cold. My tank was getting so bad (18 years old, on a 10 year warranty) that my hot line filter was clogged with rust particulates and needed to be changed every month or less, while the cold line filter was barely discolored.
I finally bit the bullet and installed a brand new non-metal fiberglass-and-resin lifetime heater tank. One with real heating elements, before the DOE outlawed that technology in favor of heat pump designs. My tank is inside the darkroom, so a heat pump would have turned the space in a de-facto human refrigerator.
How can one improve on basic darkroom water lines?
One can add more outlets. One can add dedicated outlets. One can add water tempering controls. One can add a flow meter to the print washer outlet. One can add a timer for overnight washes. One can add a check valve.* One can install any of these devices using unions, so they may be removed for maintenance without destroying the entire water panel. One can use copper pipe.
I have three darkroom sink outlets. The first is hot and cold line filtered only with manual mixing. The second adds computerized water tempering, flow control, and timing. The third adds backflow prevention.
Ken
* Also known as a backflow preventer, or anti-siphon valve. Most print washer designs have underwater feeds, and so are susceptible to vacuum-induced siphoning. Don't want your print wash water to inadvertently mix with your drinking water.
That means it's usually far more important to filter the hot water line than the cold. My tank was getting so bad (18 years old, on a 10 year warranty) that my hot line filter was clogged with rust particulates and needed to be changed every month or less, while the cold line filter was barely discolored.
I finally bit the bullet and installed a brand new non-metal fiberglass-and-resin lifetime heater tank. One with real heating elements, before the DOE outlawed that technology in favor of heat pump designs. My tank is inside the darkroom, so a heat pump would have turned the space in a de-facto human refrigerator.
How can one improve on basic darkroom water lines?
One can add more outlets. One can add dedicated outlets. One can add water tempering controls. One can add a flow meter to the print washer outlet. One can add a timer for overnight washes. One can add a check valve.* One can install any of these devices using unions, so they may be removed for maintenance without destroying the entire water panel. One can use copper pipe.
I have three darkroom sink outlets. The first is hot and cold line filtered only with manual mixing. The second adds computerized water tempering, flow control, and timing. The third adds backflow prevention.
Ken
* Also known as a backflow preventer, or anti-siphon valve. Most print washer designs have underwater feeds, and so are susceptible to vacuum-induced siphoning. Don't want your print wash water to inadvertently mix with your drinking water.
Not sure what it's like your side of the pond, or who is doing your electrics. Over here if you employed an electrician to fit the electrics I think you would struggle to get power fitted above the sink at all because I am certain it is against building regulations. Of course, if you are DIY there are things you can do....... Also, over here if you were adding the electrics as a new circuit to the consumer unit it would be a notifiable alteration to local building control, and yes it would all have to be RCD protected.
I did buy that book and I also have some older books as well.
I really like THE DARKROOM HANDBOOK because of all the plans.
claudio
Thank you Ken. I like the idea of the timer!
What do you mean when you say to use unions?
claudio
Now aren't you glad you're on our side of the pond?
Unions allow you to break the line and replace components. Other than the Intellifaucet, I can't think of anything that I would need to remove. Since my installation is all PEX, I can back off the threaded connections to the control valve and remove it if needed. I don't think most plumbers like to put many unions due to the leak potential. They'd rather cut out and re-run line as needed. I do have shut-off valves to the hot & cold lines that run to the darkroom and normally keep them shut off unless I'm in there working. L
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These are copper pipe slip union joints. This particular design requires soldering (sweating) to attach, but now days there are also non-solder variations available. The purpose of these joints is to allow you to disconnect portions of the water system piping without needing to destroy it by cutting into it.
Disconnecting might become necessary if you later wish to expand the system. Or if you have installed inline pieces of equipment that may later need to be removed for maintenance, then replaced once they are fixed. Unions make that task much, much easier.
In my case I have installed both hot and cold line 1-micron cartridge filters, the Hass Intellifaucet (the 1-micron filters are there to protect the stepper valves in this expensive device), and a Delta inline flow meter, all plumbed using copper pipe and unions. Were any of these items to need servicing they could be easily removed without destroying any of the existing pipe work.
I even drilled and back-threaded the plywood water panel itself for quarter-inch mounting bolts. That way I can not only disconnect mounted equipment from the piping, I can also easily unscrew their mounting bolts from the panel without needing to pull the entire panel completely off the wall.
As for timers, the Intellifaucet has one build in. But another good solution might be to install one of those garden hose timers used to control overnight landscape watering devices. These are common in the heat of the Southwest where less water is lost to evaporation if the watering happens at night.
Here's a couple pages of examples of these devices.
Ken
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Claudio your darkroom design has come a long way.
A few suggestions.
Ventilation- In the last drawing you have the exhaust fan near the door and it's a single point vent. If that is the only place the fan can actually go you might want to consider creating a low soffit 24" above the sink and enclosing a duct and having a few vents in that duct that correlate to the stop bath fixer and toner locations. This will draw fumes right off the trays and will also give you a shelf to store tanks and jugs and have your timers. You can also use it to push your faucets closer so you don't have to reach as far for them. Where is your fresh air coming from? The fan won;t draw unless there's a source of fresh air into the darkroom.
A hot water recirculator loop and pump. It's a pain when you're processing film and having to wait for the hot water to reach the darkroom to get th water to the right temp. A recirc loop and pump gives you almost instant hot water.
Negative drying. Unless you are doing a vast quantity of film all at once, you really don't need a drying cabinet if you keep a clean darkroom. Just hang a thin vinyl covered steel cable across the whole length of the sink, and high enough where you can reach it but not so low as it's in the way. This way you can hang negatives over the sink to drip and dry, prints as well although I recommend drying screens for prints and you seem to have room for them. I attached two pieces of angle iron that came with holes every inch on the opposite sides of the sink, then attached two turnbuckles, closed end and hook ended, and can run a very taut cable between them. And because I used 1 hook end on each side of the cable I can remove it at will.
A few suggestions.
Ventilation- In the last drawing you have the exhaust fan near the door and it's a single point vent. If that is the only place the fan can actually go you might want to consider creating a low soffit 24" above the sink and enclosing a duct and having a few vents in that duct that correlate to the stop bath fixer and toner locations. This will draw fumes right off the trays and will also give you a shelf to store tanks and jugs and have your timers. You can also use it to push your faucets closer so you don't have to reach as far for them. Where is your fresh air coming from? The fan won;t draw unless there's a source of fresh air into the darkroom.
A hot water recirculator loop and pump. It's a pain when you're processing film and having to wait for the hot water to reach the darkroom to get th water to the right temp. A recirc loop and pump gives you almost instant hot water.
Negative drying. Unless you are doing a vast quantity of film all at once, you really don't need a drying cabinet if you keep a clean darkroom. Just hang a thin vinyl covered steel cable across the whole length of the sink, and high enough where you can reach it but not so low as it's in the way. This way you can hang negatives over the sink to drip and dry, prints as well although I recommend drying screens for prints and you seem to have room for them. I attached two pieces of angle iron that came with holes every inch on the opposite sides of the sink, then attached two turnbuckles, closed end and hook ended, and can run a very taut cable between them. And because I used 1 hook end on each side of the cable I can remove it at will.
Ha, sweat joint. I am familiar with those as I have done some work with them to install water hammer reducing devices. Funnily enough this had to be done once I started using one of those garden hose timers you suggested (in this case for controlling a garden watering system). Anyway I was hoping to put all water related devices on a water supply panel above the sink, but I like your idea to install each component separately. I do not know yet if the faucets themselves would go on this panel or on the sink. Any suggestions?
If you have a picture of your water system setup, could you post it?
claudio
Hi Early Riser,
about the ventilation I am not sure I understand. In the last drawing I have the exhaust fan on the wall the sink is on and I have an inlet on the wall between the wet and dry side. I guess I could have several vents over the sink and then put the fan after all of the ducts from the vent combine into one outlet (or maybe have a fan on each vent, but would that not be overkill and complicate the build?
I like the hot water recirculator loop and pump, but I am not sure it is a necessity for me because the darkroom will be very close to my water heater so it should not take very long for the water to reach.
The idea about the line over the sink is very good as well.
claudio
I'll send some jpegs of the line over the sink, if you go that route you have to make sure you screw the end brackets into a stud or have them span two studs, because when you tighten up the cable to make it level there's significant tension on it.
Also if you can go to a 96" sink instead of a 84" you might be better off.
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Claudio these two pics show how the cable system works.
Here's a wet side picture from a while back. I'm jealous of Early Riser's expansive space! My space is a small laundry room generously donated by my wife. Her washer/dryer now lives out in the garage, which can be uncomfortable when the winter temperatures drop around here. She was a pretty good sport about it.
The left-hand sink outlet is the all manual faucet where the water is only filtered. Next to the right is the Intellifaucet outlet which adds water tempering, flow control, and timer functions. And on the far right the third faucet, also fed from the Intellifaucet, that adds flow metering and the check valve. This is a dedicated print washer outlet.
The check valve is installed between the white hose which leads to the 16x20 Versalab print washer and the faucet valve. It's an inline threaded brass cylinder barely visible here. Insulation has been added to any pipes carrying already tempered water.
There is a subtle design flaw in the layout of the piping. Plumbers reading this may be able to pick it out. It's only a minor annoyance, easily mitigated when you know what it is. But I honestly did miss it at the beginning...
All of the instruments, including the clock timers on the left, are mounted at my personal eye level. The antique Gra-Lab timer (Eisenhower administration) has since been remounted to face 45-degrees toward the center of the room for better visibility. Driven by the AC timing signal from the massive generators at Grand Coulee Dam, it's also my most accurate timer. I calibrate my Zone VI Compensating Timer against it.
The black ABS sink is a 72-inch Delta model on a very heavy-duty custom base (I can lie down inside that sink, and I weigh 225 pounds). The Versalab sits inside a separate 18-inch wide DIY fiberglass overflow sink (not visible) for peace of mind during overnight washes. It has also been modified by the addition of four extra overflow hoses to prevent overtopping. This arrangement frees up all of my regular sink space for trays.
I have installed nearly exactly the same style film hanging lines as Early Riser. They are barely visible as turnbuckles attached to studs in the walls. I have two. One lower for short rolls of 35mm, 120, and film sheets. And one higher for 36-exposure 35mm. Stainless film clips are visible in the upper-right corner. Both lines are carefully placed to allow films to hang with minimum sufficient clearance above the sink.
The custom aluminum frame on the far right-hand edge is a print drying rack. It can be quickly hung horizontally with lightweight chains suspended out from that wall. It supports fiberglass drying screens for prints up to 20x24-inches (I also have the 20x24 insert for the Versalab). There are two additional identical frames that can also be simultaneously hung in stacked fashion for extended drying capacity.
On the top edge of the photo is the bottom edge of a Thomas Duplex LPS sodium safelight. It has been custom filtered to significantly increase the safe time for graded b&w papers. Magnetically attached on top of it (not visible) is a separate bank of six 635-nm red LED bulbs. These have also been custom filtered for dramatically increased safe time with variable contrast b&w papers.
Finally, the placement of chemistry bottles up high was originally intended to prevent access in the early years by a small child. But he's 24 years old now and living out on his own. The bottles are still up there, but really, they now probably need to be moved closer to the floor for earthquake safety.
Ken
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Ken, all those bottles high up on the shelf are asking for an earthquake disaster.
I know. That's why I mentioned that at the end of my post.
I've lived through a couple of earthquakes up here, including one that instantaneously moved my entire house an inch and back on its foundation posts. It also cracked my brick chimney. The bottles didn't fall or hit each other. But that's just a case of good luck. At least if they did fall right now they would mostly fall into the sink.
I was born and raised in Southern California, and so am intimately familiar with earthquakes and what they can do. I was living on a constructive reflection node during the 1971 Sylmar Earthquake that brought down parts of the Veterans Hospital and nearly severed the Lower Van Norman Dam (remember this terrifying photo?). As a result my neighbor's backyard pool partially sloshed into his house, and I ended up thrown out of bed with books from wall shelves crashing down on top of me.
I really do need to fix that bottle situation in my darkroom. Maybe this thread will be the impetus to finally do so...
Ken
Ken and Early Riser,
great ideas in both or your setups (I am also impressed by Ken's great space). Thank you both for the detailed explanations. I guess I will have a lot of design to go through before I put the room together.
claudio
great ideas in both or your setups (I am also impressed by Ken's great space). Thank you both for the detailed explanations. I guess I will have a lot of design to go through before I put the room together.
claudio
In most places in North America you can place a power outlet within arms reach of a faucet if you use a ground fault interrupt (GFI) outlet or breaker. I bet this might be an issue in the UK as you use a 230 vac system and neutral is not always attached to ground like here in NA.
Just remember that any good idea can be over-designed into obsolescence. I remember once an engineer in our firm designed a 45 MGD potable water booster station with so many backups to the backups, that it just wouldn't work. I ripped out all that garbage in a redesign and made it simple, with a single backup.
You're looking to build a 9x11.5 darkroom, roughly same size as mine. If you need to expand your water piping in the future, that's what hack saws are for. There is a very limited amount of "stuff" you can cram into that size space. I also would not be without my California Customs drying cabinet seen in my post #28, both for film and paper, but you can run wire lines over your sink if that's what you want to do.
You're looking to build a 9x11.5 darkroom, roughly same size as mine. If you need to expand your water piping in the future, that's what hack saws are for. There is a very limited amount of "stuff" you can cram into that size space. I also would not be without my California Customs drying cabinet seen in my post #28, both for film and paper, but you can run wire lines over your sink if that's what you want to do.
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