Hair brained idea(s) for home developing color film

[Daniel Stone]

Hey all,

I know a lot of people have wondered "how can I keep my daylight processing drum at temperature while I'm processing my color film, I cannot afford a Jobo" OR, "I do not have the storage space for it".

Well, I've been thinking of how this can be tackled, simply. Consider this more of a "see what sticks/works" idea thread, so feel free to chime in.
Here in Southern California, we don't get super cold, for the most part. Nothing like Canada, Alaska, Russia or Iceland(hey Gudmundur, hope you are well my friend?!"
Anyhow, I have been asking myself "what items can be repurposed for photographic uses, especially for those of us on a budget". Well, here is my thoughts:

1. Electric space heater. Available worldwide, available in varying heat capacities, price ranges, sizes, etc.
Pro's: inexpensive(especially since this is being used in a close-quarters capacity), can be quite small in size, and easily replaced if the unit were to break.
Cons: not wise to use around splashing liquids, or liquids in general. Can draw a large(r) amount of electricity based on how much it is used. Most likely NOT water sealed, so it's user-beware in terms of shock hazards.

Place one of these behind your motorized roller base(or manual roller base) and adjust the distance away from the drum based on how warm it gets(might be best to use an internal oven thermometer with a probe to test temperature consistency of solution in a tank depending on distance from drum). Of course, if you save up your film and do larger batch runs, this can certainly decrease the setup time per developing session versus developing each time you come back from shooting.

2. Hair dryer
Most homes with women have at least one, and some are quite efficient electricity-wise nowadays.
Pro's: easily purchased worldwide, available in different ranges price-wise, and quite small in terms of storage space size.
Cons: same as electric space heater ^^^


Now, my brain is always alive with ideas, how to improve things, how to make things more efficient, etc. I've owned multiple Jobo units over the past 10yrs, and they're great. If you have the space to dedicate to such a device, they're superb. However, IME, repairs can be expensive, hard to get done, and frankly, plastic parts wear out quickly if used a lot.

From what I can see, using warm air to keep a print/film drum warm during the processing cycle is easier, less water is used/wasted, and for those of you in colder climates(especially in the winter), you can keep your darkroom/processing space nice and warm as well at the same time

Would love to hear your thoughts, let's start a DIY discussion perhaps!

cheers,
Dan
Stone Photo Gear

[Daniel Stone]

Moderators,

If you feel this thread be better placed in the Darkroom equipment area, feel free to move it.? Just realized this after I finished typing and posting it.

-Dan

[LabRat]

Looks like someone got into the eggnog a little early this season... ;-)

There's lotsa ways to skin a cat, but let's start easy...

If you have a large sink or basin, a little twisting or turning of the faucet handles should get you near temp, then fill the vessel with the tempered bath, and start the games... Temp should drop very slowly, and if needed, throw a couple of cups of boiling water into a large bath to warm it up again...

Then there's aquarium heaters to get it to b/w temps, or I bought a Chinese import baby bottle immersion heater cheep that can warm up a bath to color temps fairly quickly...

The trick is to temper as large water bath as possible, as this will hold the temp much better...

There's recirculation pumps and stuff, but they start costing money... But a safety shower mixing valve is cheap and works too, or spend too much $$$ on a proper mixing valve, but with one of these, you might be able to process your film in an ice cave (providing that said cave has good hot/cold running water, and the cave bear does not scare you away or use you as a toothpick )...

Stay Warm!!!

Steve K

[Paul Ron]

The aquarium heater is a great idea n may work at higher temps too if you get the large ones for big tanks.

HOW ABOUT... get one of those heater coils they use to boil water for tea? Just need a temp regulator to turn it on n off at your desired temp. hmmmm amazon.....

[interneg]

The aquarium heater is a great idea n may work at higher temps too if you get the large ones for big tanks.

HOW ABOUT... get one of those heater coils they use to boil water for tea? Just need a temp regulator to turn it on n off at your desired temp. hmmmm amazon.....

Believe it or not, I've seen an immersion coil branded Ilford or Kodak (can't immediately remember) for heating deep tanks.

[Bob Salomon]

The aquarium heater is a great idea n may work at higher temps too if you get the large ones for big tanks.

HOW ABOUT... get one of those heater coils they use to boil water for tea? Just need a temp regulator to turn it on n off at your desired temp. hmmmm amazon.....

I used one in my home darkroom, on Thanksgiving my wife called that dinner was ready, so I went up and ate. After eating I opened the door to the basement and was overwhelmed with thick black smoke.

Called the fire department and they decided that whatever burned was out and set up exhaust fans to get rid of the smoke.

When it was cleared we went into the darkroom and found that the aquarium heater, that was in a Paterson plastic beaker had evaporated the water, the beaker caught on fire and got hot enough to start the fiberglass covered plywood sink on fire which got hot enough to melt a solder joint in the cold water line above the sink which then sprayed enough water on the fire area to put the fire out.

Last time that I used an aquarium heater to temper chemistry!

[Joe O'Hara]

If you are talking about color negative film and the C-41 process, I can tell you that I have not had good success doing that
without an automatic processor such as the Jobo system.

In the old days, I developed many rolls of film in the C-22 process using just stainless steel tanks and a water bath, with great
success. C-41 has a much shorter development time, and seems less forgiving of the kind of variation in timing and agitation
that we have in manual development, even when I was using a water bath with a closed-loop temperature controller that kept it at
+/- 0.1 degree F of the desired temperature. The results for me at least were surprisingly nasty in several cases, and I am a
careful worker.

Given how expensive color film and chemistry are, I would say that unless you are doing a lot of color, send it out to a lab that
has the gear that the process was designed for, otherwise, save up to get an automatic processor and be done with it.

When they say 3 minutes 15 seconds at 100 F +/- 0.5 degree, they mean it. You are not going to get there with a hair drier or
a coffee heater.

[Daniel Stone]

Hey guys, good ideas/points so far!

My primary reason for looking at non-water heating options was for those of us who are looking to save water, working off of a well, or in some very limited cases, truck-delivered water.

I have a recirculation tempering bath to keep chemistry in, and it works fine for hand tanks such as single 120/220 stainless tanks . However, for me personally, I like the larger 2500 series tanks for processing rollfilm, and I have a 3010 for 4x5. Maybe I need to work up a solution for a manual roller base that can fit inside the tempering bath, that is heavy enough to not slide around like the plastic Jobo one does...

On another note, anyone know if there are any distributors who sell the 5L Fuji kits(E6 or C41) that seem to be available inEurope, but oddly, not here in the USA?

-Dan

[koraks]

A heater coil with a thermostat circuit (eg thermometer hooked up to an arduino hooked up to a relay/thyristor) should do the trick. A fairly large water bath will help keeping hysteresis low. Combine it with a roller base of some sort and you've just reverse-engineered a simple jobo processor.

Or look for a second-hand cpe2 or so.

By far the cheapest method is what LabRat suggests: a water bath, and perhaps put a jar of very hot water next to it so you can keep the bath on the desired temperature by adding some hot water.

[Daniel Stone]

One of the "multi use" items that was mentioned elsewhere on the forum was a sous-vide immersion heater/circulator. This could obviously do double duty cooking food, but also keeping a water bath at the correct temp.

Now to fab up a roller base for 2500 series drums and the 3010. I'm thinking of taking my Unicolor auto-reversing motor base, turning it upside down, so it weights down the drum while in the bath.

However, my thoughts on using a heater of some sort, maybe with an open cardboard box around it, to keep the heat somewhat localized, might still be worthy of experimenting with. To walmart and home depot I shall go!

-Dan