Suggestion for drying cabinet heater

[cyrus]

I'm going with a single metal gym locker as a drying cabinet, it is cheap and available and does a good enough job -- personaly I don't use drying cabinets but aagain, it is cheap and available and what the heck, one more barrier for dust is OK by me. I was trying to figure out how to get air movement, though not strictly necessary, for the rare occasions that I need to rush drying along. Tradition says use a lightbulb but Im not too happy about light bulbs and damp, never mind trying to lightproof it... So, how about a coffee cup warmer? I think they're 25 watts, which should be plenty to get air movement , and I think they'd be safer around water spills, right?

[Tin Can]

Nix on a coffer heater. It's meant to be immersed and used for short times. I just played with one I found and I considered it unsafe at any speed. No ground wire for starters. I tossed it.

Heat rises. Let's think on this. A good idea will appear.

I'm going with a single metal gym locker as a drying cabinet, it is cheap and available and does a good enough job -- personaly I don't use drying cabinets but aagain, it is cheap and available and what the heck, one more barrier for dust is OK by me. I was trying to figure out how to get air movement, though not strictly necessary, for the rare occasions that I need to rush drying along. Tradition says use a lightbulb but Im not too happy about light bulbs and damp, never mind trying to lightproof it... So, how about a coffee cup warmer? I think they're 25 watts, which should be plenty to get air movement , and I think they'd be safter around water spills, right?

[cyrus]

Sorry, I meant the non-immersible type of coffee mug heater http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Coffee-MWBL...d_bxgy_k_img_y That one is 17 watts.

[Tin Can]

$10, may as well let us know how it works!

Sorry, I meant the non-immersible type of coffee mug heater http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Coffee-MWBL...d_bxgy_k_img_y

[cyrus]

If I dont get electrocuted first, sure.

[Bill Burk]

I don't think you need heat. Just time.

If you don't have time, well then yes you need heat.

See the clothespins in the upper right corner of this darkroom... I hang my film to dry there and just leave it a day or two.

I can't say for sure that I get no dust, but I have a hunch it all drains off.

[genotypewriter]

I'm reluctant to think that heat is a good idea unless there's a way for the hot vapors to exit. You don't want your lenses to turn in to dim sims

How about using desiccant and a very low power fan? Higher power fans will speed things up but also run the risk of sending dust inside the lenses, depending on the sorts of lenses you have.

[AtlantaTerry]

Actually, a light bulb is not such a bad idea. All you have to do is protect it from getting wet. One way would be to put a glass jar over the light and socket. Protecting the source from water would be true of almost anything that gets warm.

Are there not long strips of ... something ... that get warm? My dim memory seems to recall something along that line. If I am right you could install them on the vertical walls of the cabinet then cover them to protect them from moisture.

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Back in the '60s when I was a photojournalist at a daily newspaper, we dried rolls of 35mm film in about 2 minutes with what was basically a metal tube with a heater/blower at the top forcing hot air down.

We would stick the stainless steel reels of processed film up into the tube then turn on the heated blower. When I got to the newspaper, that's just how it was done. But I did not like fighting with the dried film that was fixed into a tight coil because it had dried on the film processing reel.

So what I figured out was that I could halfway dry the 35mm film, remove it from the stainless steel reel then load it back onto the reel but with the emulsion facing out then finish drying it. Once I worked on the drying times I could get a perfectly flat dried roll of film. Trying to make prints or contact sheets with flat film rather than coiled film was a huge time saver that more than made up for the extra minute that it took to reload the reel backward.

[Andrew®]

Lightbulb works well in a confined space such as a locker, especially in winter.

[alexn]

Go to any pet store that stocks reptile care goods.. You can buy heater mats that are designed to go under the sand in a reptile enclosure, they use next to no power, get to about 80~90° F and the entire heating element is laminated to protect it against reptile bodily fluids... They are safe as anything, cheap, readily available and would definitely create enough warmth to get thermal convection happening..