Patterson Orbital Processor Help

[jimbobuk]

Hi guys,

I just received my first large format kit this week, i'll put up another post about my camera and what not so I can hopefully quickly get up to making some quick test exposures to ensure everything is fine.. for now though I'd like to find out how to use the patterson orbital processor that i brought to develop 5x4" films myself.

I have developed my own 35mm and medium format black and white photos, so have all the chemicals ready.. I've gotten the processor.. it does NOT have the cuts in the bottom that i've heard some people recommend.. I guess I may have a go at doing this with a stanley knife though i'd be worried of making a hole and making the tray effectively useless.

Anyways I don't have any instructions I was wondering if someone could point me to a page describing how to use it or give me a quick summary... It has the red tees, i see the holes that go into the base for it, i take it these are so the film can rest on top of these off from the bottom?

It also has the seperate dome base, can't quite see whether this is just to go underneath the main tray so you can kind of agitate the tray in a circular fashion.

I see that you can fill from the centre in what is hopefully a light tight system, the top left corner of the tray has an arrow in it, not sure what this is.. the main question i guess is how can I empty the tray of developer before putting in my stop, fixer etc... does this just pour out of the top the same way you pour it in? going in no problem but coming out of here strikes me as being very messy and difficult to get the liquids back into their containers for reuse. Or can you pour to the corner with the arrow and somewhere there is some network of holes to drain out?

That's about it i guess... Your help is very appreciated.

[Steve Kefford]

...
Anyways I don't have any instructions I was wondering if someone could point me to a page describing how to use it or give me a quick summary... It has the red tees, i see the holes that go into the base for it, i take it these are so the film can rest on top of these off from the bottom?

These tees are to keep the sheets from riding over each other. The film does rest on the bottom. Some score grooves on the bottom to aid flow underneath. I have used a few strips of silicon sealant to raise the film slightly.

It also has the seperate dome base, can't quite see whether this is just to go underneath the main tray so you can kind of agitate the tray in a circular fashion.

Spot on.

I see that you can fill from the centre in what is hopefully a light tight system, the top left corner of the tray has an arrow in it, not sure what this is.. the main question i guess is how can I empty the tray of developer before putting in my stop, fixer etc... does this just pour out of the top the same way you pour it in?

Empty the liquid through the arrow.

Steve

[jimbobuk]

I like the idea of silicon sealant to make raised ridges rather than a knife to make valleys in the existing base.

Is this silicon safe to not come off when being exposed to all the developing chemicals.. you couldn't take a snapshot of your handy work on the processor?

I guess all silicon sealant is pretty similar, i'll keep an eye out.

[Colin Robertson]

Take the lid off the processor. Inside, you'll see four holes in the base. FIRMLY put a red peg in each one. One sheet of 5x4 goes in each corner, edges tucked under the pegs to stop 'em sliding around. The inner floor of the processor is smooth- so, if you have film loaded then pour in chemistry through the top there's a danger the film will stick to the floor as it gets wet (done that). The idea of roughening the floor is to let the chemistry flow under the film. My approach is, in the darkroom I presoak the film in a tray for a couple of minutes, then load it into the orbital wet. This solved it for me. Once loaded, put the orbital on its base. Pour chemistry in through top, slowly roll it around the base during processing- this keeps sluicing the dev over the film. Drain through the corner marked with the arrow. Great tool.
Just be careful taking the film back out- it's such a tight fit you dont want to scratch up the film at the last step.

[Clueless Winddancing]

The temp chart is a drift-by monograph. As the temp cools during processing, make the temp a little warmer so that as it cools it will "just" drift-by the intended temp and then it will become a tad cooler still. Were you to try some litho 4/5 you could have "good" red light to watch things work out. A stabilizing water bath would help for more critical temps.

[jimbobuk]

Thanks guys, still not had chance to shoot or develop any black and white slides yet..

Sorry Clueless, I'm not sure what you mean.. I'm roughly aware of temperature control of my chemicals whenever i've done developing in my patterson tanks.. what is a drift-by monograph..

Cheers

[Clueless Winddancing]

In my new location I've not "found" those instructions yet. Lets say that 68 F is your time for 7 min. And that you've temped the tray to 72 F, it cools down naturally "drifting to 68 F in 4 min. By having the developer a little warmer than 68 F it will drift down to 68 F through out the majority of the film developing time. ( Were you to simply start out at 68 F the cooling down would result in less development than you had a right to expect.) It is usually important to have consistently repeatable temperatures so that you can make intelligent changes towards results that work for you. Have your subsequent chemicals warmed to the desired working temp further aids predictable results.
Some developers are more independent of temperature than others. To have control for a predicable outcome one usually must manage the variables.

[jimbobuk]

Ok, I've just tried my first home development of Ilford Delta 100 in fotospeed chemicals. This is the delta 100 that i wasn't sure if i ruined by opening the pack not in the dark..

I took 4 rubbish shots this afternoon and finally got round to developing them this evening.. loading the processor in my changing bag was a bit tight, but i managed it ok... i'd had trouble trying to load the film in the slides for the first time in the darkness as well but i'm sure it'll get better over time.

Temperatures were perfect with the water and room being near 20 degrees.. i started development and as instructed delta 100 was going to take 13 minutes with my 1+14 mix of developer.

I had read conflicting reports on how much liquids to use, the seller saying you can get by with 100ml, others saying up to 1600ml.. i settled on 500ml as i already had stop and fixer to this amount as its what is needed to develop 35mm and medium format in my tanks.

500ml seemed to be ok, i found it hard to move the processor on its base as i was doing this on a counter covered in plastic covering.. the base was too keen to move with this plastic covering so it made it hard to do.. if you jerked it too much there were small spillages out of the arrow corner, luckily being caught by this plastic covering.

Normally i agitate once a minute for about 10-30 seconds each time, similar to the instructions off of ilford's site.. i wasn't sure if this would suffice for the processor so i ended up agitating during development for the entire time... i started to see the appeal of an automatic mechanism to do this, especially considering the difficulty i was having doing this.

After completing i drained the developer spotting that it should pour small enough to go into my small funnel when i poured the stop and fixer back into their containers.

loading up the stop and fixer i did it for the normal times.. i err on the side of caution here giving 1-2 mins stop, and at least 4 minutes fixer..

Then i followed the ilford recommended way of washing giving up to 4 seperate loads of water, increasing amount of agitation done in each one.

Finally i got some fotospeed rinse aid, made 5ml to 700ml water.. slightly more than recommended... poured it in, and made the room steamy to get rid of any airbourne dust, ready to hang the negs to dry as i usually do... in my bathroom.

Lid off and i saw that i could see images, development had clearly done ok... i could see some issues as well which i assume are the light leak damage i did when opening the pack.. perhaps something else as well..

The negs were stuck to the bottom as i've yet to try and mod the base the developer, for this first time.. i could really do with some pictures of someones that they've already done it in, just to be sure..

Wearing the gloves my finger nails could get under the negs and peel them up, only small amount of this was needed and then the whole neg came up.. the rinse aid and water was still in the processor, as recommended by ilford again...

For some reason i didn't spot at this time and proceeded to start hanging them away.. it was only later i noticed that they weren't dripping clean... they were dripping a purple/black liquid, all in my bath... I was used to thinking/hoping that by this time of development, most of the chemicals that are bad have been rinsed away and so the slight drips into the bath to be rinsed down aren't a problem... these though looked horrible... thankfully rinsing them away showed they weren't particularly staining the white plastic.

My question is, what the hell is this stuff? Is it as toxic as most other things in development land... what's caused it..

I'm letting them dry, and its getting better.. in the end i decided to blast each negative with the shower to get the most of the purple stuff of.. its clear that only one side is giving this stuff away.. not clear whether its the exposed side or not..

Is it because the negs have stuck to the bottom... i placed the exposed side up thinking that any damage done by sticking to the bottom shouldn't hurt the image too much...

Does both sides of the film need fixing, and has it being stuck to the bottom stopped this occuring on one side and that is what is dripping off?

After drying are these negs going to be usable or will they remain sticky, and potentially purple staining?

Basically help!!!!

I've started doing some developing inside, having lost the place that i used to do developing in... i'd refined everything down so that few spilling occured and i could manage everything reasonably well.. with this potential staining problem happening i dont have much confidence in doing this again, for fear of staining something.. and for worries of it being toxic stuff.

That's enough i guess.. thanks for your time.. your help is really appreciated... i wont be trying this again till at least the weekend.. and even then maybe not depending on my odds of not letting it happen again.

Cheers

[brandonjscott]

"My question is, what the hell is this stuff? Is it as toxic as most other things in development land... what's caused it.."

I believe what you are seeing is the anti-halation (sp) dye coming off the back of the negative. Since the negatives were stuck to the bottom of the processor, the chemicals and water could not get to the base of the negative to wash the anti-halation(sp) dye properly.

If you wash both sides of the negatives in an open tray after you complete the processing, the dye will wash off. The don't believe the dye is especially toxic.

Brandon

[jimbobuk]

Thanks Brandon.. thats kind of what i thought i just didn't know of its name, or if it existed.. i'll definitely be looking into the modding of the base..

Anyone else ever have similar troubles when their negs stick to the bottom.. does this go nearly completely once the tray has been modded?

Any other confirmations on its relative staining, toxicity.

Cheers, just going to get the negs in now they're dry they dont seem particularly staining, only near the hanging pegs where they've stayed slightly wet.