Hi,
I got myself a Jobo 2500 tank and a 2509n reel couple of years ago and tried to use it in upright position like I would use a smaller tank with 120 film. That was rather cumbersome with the big tank so I have been developing sheets in a tray since. Which is fine, for a sheet at a time at least.
Anyway, this week I thought about trying the big tank again and decided to hack a roller base for it. Did it from material I had in hand. Old roller skate wheels and a piece of plywood and so on. While I was at it I thought why not attach a stepper motor and a driver to it. I milled a mount that attaches to the bottom of the Jobo tank. A stepper was used because I have them and have experience with them.
The driver is controlled with an Arduino. I quickly tested the gizmo this evening and it's working as expected. I just need to add a stopper to the front of the tank to prevent the tank from sliding of the wheels. And then I need to make a simple user interface to set the development time on the machine.
I tested with a piece of code that changes the direction after each revolution. The motor was running at around 30rpm. Now I would need to figure out what would be a good starting point for the speed and how often to change the direction. I have no experience with any processor machines so I would be grateful if someone who has would give me a pointer.
Cheers,
Henri
The machina
The mount
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