Calibrate the faucet on an Arkay Processing Sink

[jaymus]

I picked up a nice little Arkay Processing sink, which I've been using as a general purpose sink for developing film. The built in thermometer and faucet works great for color. I can get my washes right at 100 degrees without fiddling with hot and cold faucets.

In the picture, the faucet in the middle turns on the water on and mixes the hot and cold (I also included a closeup shot). The more you turn it, the hotter it gets. The only issue is that the mix is off. Turning it on the minimum amount gets me at 75 degrees, which it too hot for b&w.

There's gotta be a way to calibrate this thing. I haven't found any information online, I'm hoping someone here might know the answer.

Thank you in advance!

[Christopher Barrett]

Firstly, are you sure your cold water supply is under 75? Its not in a lot of places.

[jaymus]

Yep, it's colder. The sink also has a normal faucet with hot/cold and the straight cold is at 62 degrees. So it's mixing quite a bit of hot water right off the bat.

[jaymus]

The back of the sink doesn't have any apparent mechanism or valve for controlling the mix. It's gotta be done by removing the faucet itself, I'm just not that experienced with it.

[jaymus]

http://christopherbarrett.net

Gorgeous site BTW

[faberryman]

Are there shut-off valves on the hot and cold water pipes where they come out of the wall. If so, you could close down the hot water pipe a bit so the balance between hot and cold veered more toward the cold.

[Richard Wasserman]

You might ask Arkay— http://www.khbphotografix.com/arkay/

[Leigh]

Check your water pressure. Household water is supposed to be 60 psi max.

I had to install a full-service pressure regulator since mine was about 90 psi.

- Leigh

[ic-racer]

Some Arkay branded equipment used Watts Industries Co. mixing valves. Your mixing valve may be similar to the one in the Arkay CP-1000. I was able to get every service part, gasket, o-ring, etc. for mine through Watts Industries. In fact I just replaced the leaky check valve in mine last month.

[Leigh]

Another thought...

Given that there are valves controlling the water into the darkroom, are they both fully open?
If the cold water valve is slightly closed it will limit the amount of same the temperature control can pass.

And you can close the hot water valve partially to limit how much can be presented to the temperature valve.

- Leigh