Water water everywhere............

kb244 · May 17, 2007

Gary Holliday said:
People were complaining about the expense and installing expensive stills when I can re-use the water a few times and still get spotless negs - that's all.

That is of course assuming you keep your equipment spotless before using, and not to allow any contamenants back into the main bottle. The problem of course is if you use mostly the distilled/deionized water for washing and rinsing, whatever you wash/rinse out of the negatives goes right back into the bottle and comes in contact with the next negative, so even if you don't get water spots you still are introducing a previous chemical element into a new roll, course if you re-use your developer, stop, fixer you are already doing that, I would probably wash first in some tap, then use the distilled for the final rinse/wash as to make the 'reused' amount of what more efficient for reuse.

kb244 · May 17, 2007

By the way you crazy folks talking bout making a still, you better be sure to make some whiskey while yer at it, cuz yer gonna need it bad.

GeorgesGiralt · May 17, 2007

George Papantoniou said:
Do you have a room in your house where the air is more humid (the bathroom) ?? Buy a dehimidifier, place it in that room and collect the water from the dehumidifier tank for your final rinsing. It's distilled. You can even filter it through a coffee filter to avoid any possibility of dirt that could be in it (from the tank, or airborne dust).

Hi !
I thought this also.
Then I was worried because the de humidifier tank get with some black deposit.
So I take some water from it and went to a water analysis lab, and they said : badly polluted. The water has a lot of mushroom like organism in it. And a lot of bacteria. So not safe for drinking nor anything else.... The guy told me not to use the water from the fridge. Same pollutants. So since that time, I've used tap water for all m uses and films and papers are great !

kb244 · May 17, 2007

GeorgesGiralt said:
Hi !
I thought this also.
Then I was worried because the de humidifier tank get with some black deposit.
So I take some water from it and went to a water analysis lab, and they said : badly polluted. The water has a lot of mushroom like organism in it. And a lot of bacteria. So not safe for drinking nor anything else.... The guy told me not to use the water from the fridge. Same pollutants. So since that time, I've used tap water for all m uses and films and papers are great !

Not to mention if you are paranoid about the chemical they use in tap water to kill organisms such as the chlorine and such, just fill up a thing of tap water and leave it uncovered in the fridge for a few hours to a day to dechlorinate it. Just remember if you do this, do it every time as consistency is the key when expecting results from the chemistry.

dancqu · May 17, 2007

Bob F. said:
You can happily substitute deionized for distilled. Cheers, Bob

I think it correct to say that distilled water is deionized water.
So, deionized by distillation. At least the off-the-shelf versions.
I suspect that deionized water is not so ion free as distilled.
Likely it is made using reverse osmosis which, IIRC, takes
several stages to reach a high purity water.

Investigate water softeners. Small manual start units are available
which will turn out in short order gallons of soft water. Dan

Akki14 · May 18, 2007

Hrm, interesting that you think that tap water is consistant. I know from the fishkeeping genre, this isn't always the case... stuff varies quite a lot in tap water depending on recent rainfall in reservoirs or an abnormally high organism "bloom" etc. they do occasionally need to add more chlorine because of this.

Anyway, if you want distilled/RO water, go to a good pet fish shop. Although they sell it at 1ukp/gallon the last time I checked and I really haven't seen a difference between using tap water or deionised water (unless making cyanotypes that need a more neutral/acidic wash than my tap water can provide).

kb244 · May 18, 2007

Akki14 said:
Hrm, interesting that you think that tap water is consistant. I know from the fishkeeping genre, this isn't always the case... stuff varies quite a lot in tap water depending on recent rainfall in reservoirs or an abnormally high organism "bloom" etc. they do occasionally need to add more chlorine because of this.
....

It didn't surprise me to see that you are in Europe when you said that. Also city water especially in the US is chemically consistent (and pretty organism light in most regions, Europe as I recall is much worse), organisms wouldn't really affect your chemicals much, but it would affect fish like no body's business.

spark · May 18, 2007

Here in the west, it's a bit different. In California, Arizona, and Nevada "city water" can come from water projects, wells, or rivers. Depending on the season and rainfall the source and chemical load (smell!) can change. A few dollars spent on distilled or deionized water for developer mixing isn't a bad investment, especially when you consider how much we gripe about film and chemicals.

dsullivan · May 18, 2007

kb244 said:
It didn't surprise me to see that you are in Europe when you said that. Also city water especially in the US is chemically consistent (and pretty organism light in most regions, Europe as I recall is much worse), organisms wouldn't really affect your chemicals much, but it would affect fish like no body's business.

The number of organisms permitted in UK water is zero and UK drinking water standards are tougher than the EU directive and EPA standards for most contaminants bar Nitrates (which can vary widely below the limit).

Bar water hardness is there much in it?

Water water everywhere............

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