Another from the Highlands!

[Tim Parkin]

Nice to see an active Large Format Photography forum! We've moved to the area near Glencoe and I'm hoping to get my LF back in action now I've got a darkroom space to set up my Jobo ATL2300. For the time being here's a couple of my last LF photos that I developed last month (one of which is over three years old!)

 

[Ian Grant]

Very nice Tim, these don't seem like work I've seen of yours before.

Ian

 

[mono]

Welcome to the forum, Tim!
We have often been there:
Love Glencoe and Rannoch Moor !

 

[mpirie]

Welcome Tim.

Let me know if you need any help setting up the darkroom........i'm only 3hrs away

Mike

 

[Tim Parkin]

Welcome Tim.

Let me know if you need any help setting up the darkroom........i'm only 3hrs away

Mike

I might well give you a bell - I'm trying to work out what to do about a tempered water supply (I need a really consistent one as I'm using a Jobo ATL 2300 that sits idle for a while and then uses the tempered water so it needs to not go cold in the pipes and be consistent without pre-running.

I was thinking about an intellifaucet but I'm not sure I can afford one straight away.

Tim

 

[Tim Parkin]

Very nice Tim, these don't seem like work I've seen of yours before.

Ian

I've not published a lot of 5x4 in the last few years as I haven't really felt like they fitted in (a bunch of Iceland stuff and then random East Yorkshire shots). I have a few ideas for projects locally though.

 

[Tim Parkin]

Welcome to the forum, Tim!
We have often been there:
Love Glencoe and Rannoch Moor !

Cheers mate - it's such a beautiful area and so many undiscovered gems if you walk just a few hundred yards from the roads

 

[Joanna Carter]

I might well give you a bell - I'm trying to work out what to do about a tempered water supply (I need a really consistent one as I'm using a Jobo ATL 2300 that sits idle for a while and then uses the tempered water so it needs to not go cold in the pipes and be consistent without pre-running.

I was thinking about an intellifaucet but I'm not sure I can afford one straight away.

Tim

I have an ATL 1500 and use a very large bucket with a heater that is like an aquarium heater but goes up to 40°C, together with a caravan water pump connected to the low pressure input and using the 1/4" jack to supply and switch it. A whole lot cheaper than the intellifaucet

 

[David M]

On Sept 2, Ian Barber, in Talk About Developing Film, published an account of using a sous-vide device. I think he found it promising so you might care to look it up.

 

[mpirie]

I might well give you a bell - I'm trying to work out what to do about a tempered water supply (I need a really consistent one as I'm using a Jobo ATL 2300 that sits idle for a while and then uses the tempered water so it needs to not go cold in the pipes and be consistent without pre-running.

I was thinking about an intellifaucet but I'm not sure I can afford one straight away.

Tim

By chance Ian, i have a similar question on another LF forum.

I have a cold supply to the darkroom and am looking for a realistic method of giving me running water at 20deg.

So far, the advice is to build a holding system for water and use that during the wash cycles......problem is that if you use running water to wash film, then the stock of tempered water will not last long.

So, the options seem to be either an electric shower unit or an on-demand water heater....or tap into the house hot water.....fed into a thermostatic mixer.

I have a Pro-Co mixing/filter unit and i doubt it's as good as an Intellifaucet, but cost a lot less! It's fed from an on-demand hot water system, but with winter mains water struggling to reach 4 deg, then raising running water by 16 degrees is a lot to ask of any instant water heater.....hence the shower idea.

Mike

PS, i struggle with my Jobo CPA2 too.......when i'm ready to process, it takes hours to heat the water and chems to 20deg. One option may be to keep the whole room warm.....but that's a big ask.

 

[David M]

There may be a simpler way.
Keep a kettle next to the processor. Take out, say, a litre of water and pour in a litre of boiling water. Stir well.
You can find the right amount to add if you know the normal content of the bath. There is a written formula, but try this website:
http://www.onlineconversion.com/mixing_water.htm
It's in grams, but 1g = ml, as we all know.

As far as film washing is concerned, Ilford's fill-agitate-fill-agitate ... sequence demonstrates that continuous flow is not essential (and not environmentally friendly either).
There may be films that do need it, that I don't know about.

 

[mpirie]

Thanks David......the problem with that approach is that you can have the reservoir water at 20 but the bottles of chems can be a long way behind.......at least if i leave the processor to bring itself up to temp, then i can be sure the chems are heating up at the same time too.

I've always used running water to wash film so am trying to find a solution. If I can't, then i may have to resort to the alternative washing method.

 

[Tim Parkin]

I have an ATL 1500 and use a very large bucket with a heater that is like an aquarium heater but goes up to 40°C, together with a caravan water pump connected to the low pressure input and using the 1/4" jack to supply and switch it. A whole lot cheaper than the intellifaucet

Yes that's pretty much the solution I'm using at the moment. I have a mobile home water tank with a couple of heating tubes in their (and a small pump to stop localised heating) out of that I'm using a negative pressure shower pump (I need three bar for the ATL). This all works well enough but I would like something automated that I can also use for PtPd etc.

 

[Tim Parkin]

On Sept 2, Ian Barber, in Talk About Developing Film, published an account of using a sous-vide device. I think he found it promising so you might care to look it up.

The Sous Vide are a great solution - pump and heater. Not so good for the ATL though (I need three bar of pressure too)

 

[Tim Parkin]

By chance Ian, i have a similar question on another LF forum.

I have a cold supply to the darkroom and am looking for a realistic method of giving me running water at 20deg.

So far, the advice is to build a holding system for water and use that during the wash cycles......problem is that if you use running water to wash film, then the stock of tempered water will not last long.

So, the options seem to be either an electric shower unit or an on-demand water heater....or tap into the house hot water.....fed into a thermostatic mixer.

I have a Pro-Co mixing/filter unit and i doubt it's as good as an Intellifaucet, but cost a lot less! It's fed from an on-demand hot water system, but with winter mains water struggling to reach 4 deg, then raising running water by 16 degrees is a lot to ask of any instant water heater.....hence the shower idea.

Mike

PS, i struggle with my Jobo CPA2 too.......when i'm ready to process, it takes hours to heat the water and chems to 20deg. One option may be to keep the whole room warm.....but that's a big ask.

Same problems here. Any device has to be close to the developer/darkroom to stop water cooling in pipes and you need a pretty damned good heater to get things up to temperature well (and a wall mounted on demand heater is just not stable enough with on and off cycles).

 

[Tim Parkin]

Very nice Tim, these don't seem like work I've seen of yours before.

Ian

Here's another couple. Not the best but gives you an idea what I've been doing.

 

[Ian Grant]

Thanks Tim, definitely seems you're changing your approach, nice images.

Ian

 

[David M]

I've just done some rough and ready tests for increasing the temperature of liquids in a controlled manner, in my microwave.
I think it's rated at 800 or 850 watts.
Initial temperature of one litre of tap water: 10°C
One 10 second burst on full power: 11.3°C
Second 10 second burst: 13°C
Third 10 second burst: 14.5°C
So it seems that one burst raises the temperature by about one-and-a-half degrees. I didn't pursue the sequence to 20°C because I assumed that final tempering would be done in the machine and one would stop a little bit short. ( –14.5 > 16 > 17.5 > 19, perhaps?)
This is not a definitive test. I used a heavy Pyrex jug which was at room temperature and that must have influenced the result. On the other hand, it does point to a system that could be refined with testing. Fractional microwave powers are possible.
I can't imagine that these gentle increments would harm photographic solutions in any way.

Incidentally, for cooling, I keep a stock of those things (what are they called?) that you put into picnic boxes, in the freezer. They float, so they are easy to fish out and I presume they generate some convective mixing.

 

[mpirie]

Next processing run i will wash at a lower flow-rate and see if the 2.5 gallon on-demand heater can supply enough to wash thoroughly.

 

[David M]

There is another possibility.
I heard of some research chemists, short of money (austerity biting, no doubt) who made a heater for reaction fluids by locating a coiled tube inside a microwave oven and passing their solutions through it. Apparently it worked well, but this is clearly only for someone who knows what they are doing, and knows it before they start experimenting.
I AM NOT IN ANY WAY ADVISING ANYONE TO DO THIS.