Update from Jobo RE the CPP3 at photokina

I also fill the tank with warm water because I have a gas heater. Those with an electric heater will probably prefer warming up the water in the Jobo.

In any event I do wait for the entire chemistry preparation process as the entire system must be heated, the upper tray in particular. Actually I pour the warm water to the upper tray and let it fall into the lower tray, so that upper tray is heated first.
I pour the warm water with all the flasks in their slot.
Then I extract the first flask, mix the first developer, put the flask in the slot, extract the second flask etc.
This way when I finish preparing the sixth bath the first flasks will already have seated in the warm water for enough time to warm up.

I load the film in the tank first. One reason I do that is that I can leave the tank in the Jobo during the warming up phase. I also do it because loading the film in the reel is the only operation that makes me a bit nervous so to speak, I want to have that done before anything else.

During the warming up phase pump and heater are on and rotation is on at the smaller speed, without inversion.
Before operations I activate inversion and set the speed to my typical speed (a little faster than the P position).

No difference for this purpose between a gas and electric water heater. I have gas now - it's slower to get to the faucet than any electric I ever had, but that's a function of the pipes and layout and distances. Heaters that heat the water in a tank hold it at the set "hot" temperature - how long it takes to get hot water at the tap (faucet in the US) depends on other factors and really has nothing to do with gas versus electric. Gas WILL re-heat a tank faster if you run out, though, and this doesn't apply to tankless types.

Here heating water with electricity costs around 3 times more than heating it with natural gas. Maybe in the US it is the other way round. That's the reason why I pour hot water (from natural gas) in the Jobo first, so that the initial and bigger energy expense to bring the Jobo at temperature costs less. My reasoning was that if you have an electric heater, you'd rather use the internal Jobo electric heater because it's presumably more practical and the cost is in any case the same.

Diapositivo said:

Here heating water with electricity costs around 3 times more than heating it with natural gas. Maybe in the US it is the other way round. That's the reason why I pour hot water (from natural gas) in the Jobo first, so that the initial and bigger energy expense to bring the Jobo at temperature costs less. My reasoning was that if you have an electric heater, you'd rather use the internal Jobo electric heater because it's presumably more practical and the cost is in any case the same.

Click to expand...

Humm, ok, I just assumed that you meant it's preferable to use the Jobo if you have an electric water heater because the gas one will be faster but the electric will not. Costs didn't even enter into it. Whether gas or electricity is less expensive to heat water in the US depends very much on where you live, and also current natural gas prices which tend to fluctuate much more wildly than electricity. When I lived in Tennessee the area had some of the lowest electricity costs in the country due to the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority, and lots of hydroelectric dams in the area) and typical gas prices. Gas spiked to ridiculous levels a few years before that and the few people with gas heat were tearing it out, if they could afford the swap, and going to electric heat pumps. I think the price of gas came back down to where the cost isn't that much different there again (but most houses do not have gas service - I had one apartment there that did.)

Here in Georgia I'm really not sure which is less expensive. My house had gas when I moved in, so that's what I have.

I'd think an electric water heater is still going to be a lot more efficient than the little coil in the Jobo. Still and more to the point, I hate to think what you must pay for electricity if the cost of heating the Jobo is even noticeable. It's entirely trivial here. Unless you heat a tank full of cold water to color temperatures daily all month you'll never notice the difference in your bill from using a Jobo, and probably not even then.

Diapositivo said:

Here heating water with electricity costs around 3 times more than heating it with natural gas. Maybe in the US it is the other way round. That's the reason why I pour hot water (from natural gas) in the Jobo first, so that the initial and bigger energy expense to bring the Jobo at temperature costs less. My reasoning was that if you have an electric heater, you'd rather use the internal Jobo electric heater because it's presumably more practical and the cost is in any case the same.

Click to expand...

You are assuming that heating a pot on the surface of your gas stove is more efficient than heating water inside an enclosed, insulated electric water heater. this may not be true. We need a comparative study done on this. A double-blind test with peer review of methodology. Cover all the bases by submitting grant applications to the National Science foundation (this is pure science, right?), National Coal Alliance (they make electricity), the Natural Gas Institute (they supply the gas), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (for the effects on greenhouse gasses).

Or just spend the three cents it costs to use the Jobo and don't worry about it.

Gas costs here around € 0.68 per additional cubic metre, as marginal cost. Actually a bit more now (I have old calculation at hand). The theoretical efficiency of the gas heater is > 90% of the inferior heat power (measured at the burner, overlooking dispersion in the plumbing). With that efficiency a cubic metre of natural gas should give around 7.425 Megacalories or € 0.092 per Mcalorie.

With my old electricity contract the marginal cost of electricity (the upper threshold layer where I would use my Jobo) was € 0.273 per kWh. 1 kWh = 0.86 Mcalorie. That's € 0.32 per Mcalorie, or 3.5 times the cost of the Mcalorie produced with gas (!).

You have to do things in a very inefficient way to waste 75% of gas-produced energy while filling the Jobo!

It is also true though that with my very new contract electricity costs around 0.18 € per kWh, quite flat. So with this contract 1 marginal Mcalorie costs around € 0.21. That's in any case a bit more than twice the cost with gas.

A Jobo "run" including electric warming up would costs probably around 1 kWh or, with the old contract, some 27 €cents not 3 $cents! Gas is also faster as the internal electric resistor would take more time to bring the Jobo in temperature.

And yes, I boil water for tea with the gas kettle instead of the electric kettle, because gas costs less. I mind cents. Call me frugal.

I cannot be that frugal with coffee because I like Espresso coffee and the Espresso machine is electrical.

Gas is faster. $0.03 was really just an arbitrary joke, but I don't think 27 cents or .27 Euro would exactly make a lot of difference to most people, though it would add up if you ran it every day.

I'll check my statements when I have time and see what my rates are.

Wow, I believe most of the U.S. pay about $.08 per Kwh.

The whole pricing thing makes me chuckle. People spend 3K on a car, motorcyle, or boat and it's
called a klunker, and will need another thousand in repairs in two months. People spend 2 or 3 K on
a DLSR and then it's obsolete in two years, or will be lacking some silly feature they just gotta have
next, so they shell out the money again. They spend 2K on some long telephoto lens for a vacation
and use it once. What gives? So here's a nice piece of dkrm gear with a good reputation and practical application and everyone whines. Is it really that much more than in the good ole days if
one factors in ordinary inflation? Gosh, grow up.

I agree, this is a fully up to date, professional and warrantied processor that will allow a lot of control with onboard process timing and it priced to where the company can stay in business and yet people always bitch.

I am still on the fence about it but only because I have spent over 20K on LF, film paper and chemistry this year....

DREW WILEY said:

The whole pricing thing makes me chuckle. People spend 3K on a car, motorcyle, or boat and it's
called a klunker, and will need another thousand in repairs in two months. People spend 2 or 3 K on
a DLSR and then it's obsolete in two years, or will be lacking some silly feature they just gotta have
next, so they shell out the money again. They spend 2K on some long telephoto lens for a vacation
and use it once. What gives? So here's a nice piece of dkrm gear with a good reputation and practical application and everyone whines. Is it really that much more than in the good ole days if
one factors in ordinary inflation? Gosh, grow up.

Click to expand...

The pricing doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I know I'm going to eventually burn up my second upgrade level 1 CPP-2 by using my Expert drums on it like I did the upgrade level 1 CPP-2 I had before it, so I'm looking forward to availability of the US version of the CPP-3.

I understand about the pricing Drew, but there are some other factors.

I could buy one of these CPP3s if I wanted one badly enough. The thing is, I have a CPE2 that does the job. If I didn't I could buy one for a few hundred dollars, or a used CPA2 or CPP2, though admittedly the price of a very good condition CPP/CPA with the late model motor would starts to make the new one with new features and warranty fairly attractive. But if I didn't have a Jobo I could develop my roll film in inversion tanks like I used to, and still do for Diafine, and my sheet film in my hangars and deep tanks or in trays. I don't really need one of these. They're nice, but not necessary. They make good results easier but if you go to the trouble to do it right no one would be able to tell your prints from negatives (or prints if so inclined) processed in one of these from those done using much simpler and cheaper methods. This thing is a luxury for most of us. If I needed it to do my work, I would buy one. But I don't. So it's a question of whether the added convenience is worth the price, and it's a high price considering.

pbromaghin said:

Wow, I believe most of the U.S. pay about $.08 per Kwh.

Click to expand...

I have my bill right here. Last month I used 840 kWh. My total bill was $111.06 for a total cost of $0.13/ kWh. But that's not the whole story. My bill includes fees for "Environmental Compliance Cost" ($5.97) and "Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery" ($3.84) and "Municipal Franchise Fee" ($1.12) that don't vary no matter how much or little I use, plus sales tax of $6.29. Even the $0.13 is less than half the cost of Fabrizio's electricity if the dollar were equal to the Euro, which it hasn't been in some time. At current exchange rates his cost is more like $0.36 per kWh. Wow is right! Almost three times what I pay, and my rate is, according to the poster I'm replying to anyway, over 50% over the US average (I really have no idea what the US average is.)

My gas bill says I pay $0.899 per therm. I don't know how that compares to Mcalories.

But it's pretty clear that I can dismiss the cost of heating the Jobo as trivial, while our European friends might not want to dismiss it.

Roger, my belief is apparently outdated. According to what I find on the web, you are closer to the U.S average now.

My rate is actually a bit lower before the fees are applied. That matters because the fees are fixed. So the more I use, the lower the effective rate, though the difference won't be that much.