Midtone Machines - Automatic Film Processing Machine

[AndrewBurns]

I've added a bit of a 'trench' to the bottom of the develop tank to allow fluid to better fill/drain, I've taken some video of the process yesterday but now I need to learn how to edit videos to chop it all together (I'm an engineer, not a youtube vlogger...)

Also the pinch valve is well over 10000 cycles now and still going strong, there are some small fissures on the inside of the silicone tube now but it still holds pressure without leaking. The gear train of the servo looked fine at 10k cycles so if I had to bet I'd guess the first part to fail will be the silicone tube splitting at >20k cycles. These valves will cycle between about 1 and 5 times per tank of film developed so we're already talking a lot of film through the machine at this point (>8000 rolls of 35mm). The good thing about the tube failing first too is that it's extremely easy to replace, and my aim is to make the machine user-serviceable with spare parts and repair manuals available.

[AndrewBurns]

New blog post, now with a video of the develop tank filling and draining! The pinch valve is over 16000 cycles without problems and the sheet metal components have arrived. It's really starting to look like a machine, not long until film is being developed I think.

http://midtonemachines.com/news/wate...d-more-valves/

Direct link to the video:

[Peter De Smidt]

Looking good!

[Tin Can]

Agree!

[Two23]

Something like this should have happened years ago.


Kent in SD

[Duolab123]

Very neat.

[AndrewBurns]

Just dropped the hammer on getting 10 production prototype develop tanks made, and a bunch of other parts required to continue building up the machine, watch this space! I'm really trying to get this thing developing film before the end of the year.

[Duolab123]

Very good. Looking forward to seeing results.

[calebarchie]

Just dropped the hammer on getting 10 production prototype develop tanks made, and a bunch of other parts required to continue building up the machine, watch this space! I'm really trying to get this thing developing film before the end of the year.

Nice, you didn't want to test the 3D printed one for development before then?

[AndrewBurns]

Nice, you didn't want to test the 3D printed one for development before then?

The 3D printed one wasn't really the correct material for fully functional testing, it wasn't black and opaque for keeping light out and the heat deflection temperature of the resin isn't really as high as I'd like (also not sure about the chemical resistance). I also needed one or two other parts made so I got them all done together, I'm still going to use all 3D printed parts for the valves for the time being.