Jobo Expert and Hand Rotation

[Scotty230358]

I have a Jobo Expert drum and a 1509 manual roller base. I have managed to get consistency of rotation speed but have one remaining problem.

If I understand correctly you must fill a jobo expert drum whilst it is horizontal and whilst it is rotating. I have funnels with hoses on them to accomplish the horizontal part but without three arms I cannot rotate the drum at the same time.

Now the obvious answer is to a) buy a motorized drum or a Jobo processor with lift (i.e. CPPA). The only problem is that motorized drums that run on 240 volts are very rare and CPPAs are both rare and expensive when they do come up for sale. I don't want to die of old age waiting for these to become available.

Does anyone out there use an expert drum manually? If so how do you work around the problem of filling it. Indeed has anyone found that it is in fact not necessary to rotate the drum whilst filling it.

Many thanks

Adrian

[jackpie]

I use a Unicolor motor base but still need to take the drum off to fill. I sit the drum in a sink at an angle of 45 degrees and quickly pour in the chemicals. If the drum is vertical it's difficult to get any liquid in because the air can't get out of the drum. The danger is uneven development because some parts of the film get submerged before the drum gets rotating again. I figure if you use a dilute developer solution then the loading time is a small percentage of the total developing time.

In practice this works for me with Rodinal 1:50 for B&W.

[jeroldharter]

I do what Jackpie does. Even with a motorized drum, you need to remove the drum to dump and fill. Some people have engineered contraptions to fill the drums while rolling but that seems like a lot of nuisance. I have not had any problems with uneven development on a motorized drum roller or hand rolling on the manual roller base. I use Xtol 1:1 with a 5 minute water pre-soak. I have also hand rolled TriX 120 film, up to 8 rolls per batch, without any problems.

If you don't tilt the drum slightly, a vacuum develops and the drum over flows or the solutions spatter. If you tilt slightly it is easier to pour in and no problems.

One nice thing about the hand roller is that you can put it in a large darkroom tray with a shallow water beth to help regulate the temperature.

[Ron Marshall]

I do the same as mentioned above. Tilted at 45 degrees, 400ml will pour into the drum in 15 seconds. My dev. times are all over 8 min. I don't use a presoak and never have any unevenness.

[Jim Noel]

A good, 5 minute, pre-soak should alleviate problems with uneven development from filling at a 45 degree angle.

[Scotty230358]

Thank you all for your responses. I will give this a try. The expert is so much easier to load than the 2500 series tank. It also gives me the scope to develop up to 10 sheets per day.

[jeroldharter]

If you are having trouble loading the 2500 series reels, consider getting the loader device and/or ATN Viper night vision monocular. The latter might sound silly but a number of people use these so I followed their lead and tried one out. It is great. Does not fog film plus you can actually see what you are doing. Makes loading film tubes, reels, holders a breeze. Well worth the cost if you are active in the darkroom. Plus, with the reels you could fairly easily develop 18 sheets at once which is a luxury after a photo trip. The 2500 series is a lot cheaper that the 3000 series drums which are selling for >$500 commonly.

[Brian C. Miller]

Have you considered filling the tank using a garden watering can? There are some that are small and have a long, narrow spout.

One thing you can do is leave one tube empty when loading the drum. Then, pour your developer into the empty tube. Flip the drum over and start your development cycle.

[Scotty230358]

Once again thanks for your advice. Just one small supplementary question. Are there any opinions about unidirectional as opposed to bi-directional rotation. Common wisdom says that bi-directional rotation prevents the creation of repetitive eddies that may cause uneven development. Some believe it does not matter. Jobo claim that the design of the Expert drum means that development is always random thus supposedly making uneven development impossible. I would welcome any thoughts. Unidirectional rotation would certainly make keeping the rotation speed consistent that much easier and negate the necessity for all that tiresome counting.

[Daniel Stone]

any good "supply shop" should have one of these, however, $5 in parts at home depot(funnel and 2' of 3/4"I.D. flexible clear tubing, just no spigot like on this one below) will work, without the markup in price ;).

http://beerbongusa.com/order/images/zzzxft1.jpg

no need to pour at a 45deg angle either.

-DUMP chemicals
-re-set on motor base(so its spinning)
-insert tube into hole on lid
-pour in chems while drum is spinning

using a 5min pre-soak will help too

-Dan

[jeroldharter]

I can't easily find it, but somewhere there is a photo of a device rigged up to support the funnel and exit port of the hose while the drum rotates on the base. That way you can more easily pour in the solutions. Ingenious but it seems like too much trouble given that I have not had problems simply dumping the solutions into the drum and then placing it on the motor.

[Ron Marshall]

I hope you have since taken the Beer Bong label off!