Any experience with the Axle Compact Rotary Film Processor?

[drew.saunders]

I was watching a YouTube video and spotted an interesting Jobo tank compatible drum rotator that looks like it might be a pretty decent, not so huge, alternative to ancient used rotating bases or the eTone processor:

https://axle.photography/products/cr1

I used the shiny, new, "Google site search" but couldn't see if this has been discussed here before.

Does anyone have any experience with it? It's quite a bit more expensive ($495) than the eTone (c. $200), but quite a bit less than a real Jobo (no water bath, of course).

Drew

[Fred L]

Looks interesting, but yeah, a bit more spendy. If it works with Jobo 15xx tanks and Expert drums, this could be worth looking at. Also if it can work with 4/5" abs tubes, that would be a bonus (how I process 7x17).

Wish they had an 'about' page as I'm curious about where it's made and how this idea came about.

thanks for the link

[bob carnie]

Looks interesting, but yeah, a bit more spendy. If it works with Jobo 15xx tanks and Expert drums, this could be worth looking at. Also if it can work with 4/5" abs tubes, that would be a bonus (how I process 7x17).

Wish they page had an about page as I'm curious about where it's made and how this idea came about.

thanks for the link

I am interested in this unit and sent an email to them. Price is good for its design and ability to handle larger tanks... we will see and I will report back if I have any progress

[Daniel Unkefer]

Looks really good, considerably more money than my Etone, but not overly expensive IMO. My olde Unirollers strain a bit with a fully filled JOBO 2500 tank, the Etone dosen't strain. I'm really interested in how this works out for you guys. Right now I'm going with the Etone. And still use the Unirollers for 4x5 and 8x10 sheets. I used to run 16x20 fibre Ektalure sheets in the big Unidrum. There's nothing else like this around I can find.

[NHE]

I have been using one of these for a couple of months now. I’ve been very happy with it, seems to have no trouble turning any drum I have. I have used it with Jobo expert and 2500 series drums. It’s been reliable and have had zero issues with it and as it appears to be mostly off the shelf components it should be easy to repair should something break. Not sure where it was made, but it shipped from Singapore.

The only caveat I have would be that it did require some “adjustment” to work the way I wanted it to. I adjusted the position of the wheels to better fit the expert drums. The slightly more difficult thing was adjusting the timing for the motor controller as out of the box it was set so that the expert drums did not make a complete revolution before reversing. There is a YouTube video on how to adjust it.

I can provide more information/pictures if anyone wants to know more.

[Fred L]

I was watching a YouTube video and spotted an interesting Jobo tank compatible drum rotator that looks like it might be a pretty decent, not so huge, alternative to ancient used rotating bases or the eTone processor
Drew

hey drew,

Tried looking for the youtube video but couldn't seem to find it. Lots of others but not this one. Do you still have the link ?


thanks,
freddy

[Erik Larsen]

That looks pretty slick I think. Nice of them to make it compatible with expert drums. One of these days my Uniroller is gonna retire and it’s good to have options!

[Michael R]

Looks nice. If someone could make a lift-type thing to use with something like this that would be great.

I had to chuckle at the picture of the machine with the background silhouette of the giant Jobo…

[Fred L]

238175[/ATTACH]

[Daniel Unkefer]

Looks almost Steampunk to me. Chug Chug. Prolly get parts from McMaster Carr