Timer in complete darkness?

[Ross Chambers]

Do please check out the RH Designs Process Master II:

Programmable for as many steps as you will need, continuous or interruptable count downs, dimmable light, beeps at 30 sec. increments and end of step, foot switch, small enough to put under the bench to screen any light, battery or mains power, up to 8 different processes, temperature compensation. Pricy? A little, but worth it. British? To the core!

Regards - Ross (from the ex colony)

[manfromh]

I use the stopwatch on my cellphone. I keep it under a black cloth under the sink (developer tray is in the sink). Occasionally i take a very quick peek at the time. The cellphone screen is quite bright. So far, no problems.

[lungovw]

The option that worked best for me was buying a Compaq iPAQ, second hand (mobile phones killed this market and they are very cheap now). Then I downloaded a program called Stoptime (for free). There you have 4 chronometers. One bips every thirty seconds, the other controls development, next stop bath and forth fixing bath. The alarms have different sounds. Once you started it you can switch off the screen or just cover it. Very practical also for tank development. Wagner

[andress007]

grab yourself night vision goggles @ e-bay for $80 and use your wristwatch or just watch with big hands, in addition to able to see you watch you will also be able to see what you are doing with your films in trays

[Filmnut]

I have a gralab that has luminous dials, once exposed to light, it glows for long enough to do a couple of batches of film.
Keith

[Mick Fagan]

The "Unicolor Jingle Bell" timer is possibly the cheapest, able to be worked completely in the dark, timer!

It is programmable in 30 second increments and is remarkably accurate.

I have used one for about 25 years for all film processing. As I mostly use a Jobo CPE2 I don't require darkness, however I still use the Unicolor Jingle Bell timer as it's audible ring alerts me if I get distracted.

I always use an old Junghans analogue stop watch as well, don't know why, I just do. The Unicolor Jingle Bell timer is always within 6 seconds on a 10'30" process, some of which is due to clicking the stopwatch with my thumb, then reaching down to press start, the Unicolor Jingle Bell timer.

I also do quite a few processes at 5' or 5'30" and the Unicolor Jingle Bell timer is within about 8 seconds of that time.

At one stage I had two Unicolor Jingle Bell timers, they were virtually identical in the timing.

They are worth looking into as a good dish/tray working in the dark timer.

Mick.

[Tim k]

For what its worth;

I used a micro tape recorder that I had around the house, and recorded 30 second marks on a tape, while doing some daylight processing. I found it quite liberating not staring at a clock. I could go about whatever I wanted to.

That said, I picked up a little digital voice recorder and did the same thing. No more rewinding. Slick solution.

thanks guys

[Stefan Findel]

My last darkroom had a window leaking so much light, that I decided not to run film while the sun was directly shining on the window. I did not go so far as to process film only on an overcast moonless night, my film and I got used to a little leak. (I was processing 4x5 TMX in deep tank, and 8x10 TMY in trays) On all of this the RH process timer was emitting it's gentle glow... (If that seems too much, cover it with an ND (or other) filter made for studio lights) Did the film get fogged? Not that I noticed in practical terms. Maybe if read with a densitometer, the base fog was increased, but overall I was really surprised, how leaky a room can be. While I would not encourage carelessness (I consider myself a very clean worker), I just want to say, don't get carried away with all this. 'Total darkness' is relative. (Of course my current darkroom does not have a window, so I can process without consulting the weather forecast.)

[Lynn Jones]

I've always use a GraLab timer with the luminous numbers and pointers. In my 6 decades of experience the only time one of those have fogged film was when I absent mndledly stood four sheets of 4x5 up against the dial. Now folks that was dumb, and I did it. Got some very nice out of focus numbers on the film.

Lynn