Jobo lift + Expert drum = dead volume of wasted chemicals

[alps-art.ch]

Hello,

After years of happy operations on CPP-2 I realized that use of an Expert drum e.g. 3010 with Jobo lift - obviously snapping it onto the upper outlet - does not pass the entire amount of poured into the lift funnel chemicals into the drum, as I expected. Some amount goes into the appendix - compartment which ends up in lower outlet blocked by the red cap, and is obviously wasted there.

Did anybody try to somehow overcome this problem? Fill this appendix with some neutral staff?

thanks for your opinions,
Dim.

[Louis Pacilla]

Hello,

After years of happy operations on CPP-2 I realized that use of an Expert drum e.g. 3010 with Jobo lift - obviously snapping it onto the upper outlet - does not pass the entire amount of poured into the lift funnel chemicals into the drum, as I expected. Some amount goes into the appendix - compartment which ends up in lower outlet blocked by the red cap, and is obviously wasted there.

Did anybody try to somehow overcome this problem? Fill this appendix with some neutral staff?

thanks for your opinions,
Dim.

Why not contact Jobo and see if they have any suggestions for you. I imagine if your lift is serviceable they'll have your parts & if you need a new lift Jobo will have it. Plus they're the European distributor of Chamonix cameras & most Ilford products. https://www.jobo.com/?ecms_lang=EN

[Oren Grad]

In 20+ years of using my CPA-2 with Lift it never occurred to me to worry about that.

I just went down to the darkroom and slowly poured some water into the Lift from a graduated cylinder, with the bottom outlet plugged and the top one open, to see how big an issue it is. Turns out that the volume trapped in that way is no more than 15 ml, maybe a bit less. So I'm going to continue to not worry about it.

[Oren Grad]

I imagine if your lift is serviceable...

It's not a malfunction - it's the way the Lift is designed.

[alps-art.ch]

Why not contact Jobo and see if they have any suggestions for you. I imagine if your lift is serviceable they'll have your parts & if you need a new lift Jobo will have it. Plus they're the European distributor of Chamonix cameras & most Ilford products. https://www.jobo.com/?ecms_lang=EN

Hi, I certainly will contact Jobo, though I do not think new lifts are better in this. With two outlets, the lift should have an internal "switch" directing flux into one or another, not just a cap covering outlet.

[alps-art.ch]

Turns out that the volume trapped in that way is no more than 15 ml, maybe a bit less. So I'm going to continue to not worry about it.

OK. Though, I thought to inject some silicon paste into it. I am not going to use my lift with anything other than expert drum.

[Fred L]

Like Oren, I never gave it much thought. I use Expert and smaller 15xx tanks, and 15ml really isn't much or at least it's insignificant imo, when using roller processing.

[ic-racer]

I measured mine and there was about 10ml of fluid in the lower chamber. I'd not destroy a working lift over this.

[JMO]

And keep in mind that the last fluids that one usually uses with the JOBO processor and an Expert (or others) drum when developing film is a series of water rinses - so there should be no concern about chemicals being left in the the lift or its related tubing to compromise the next processing.

[Lachlan 717]

I’d increase the concentration and/or temperature of your developer.

Shorter development times will give you less time to think about stuff like this...