Large Developing Tank

[Annibale G.]

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Hi guys,

I'm developing my film with a 8 reels tank. Usually they are a lot, sometimes 100-120. Do you know if exist something that allow to develop maybe 40-50 films at time? Maybe a large developer... I don't know. Can you suggest me something or link a website?

Thanks awfully.

Edited September 17, 2010 by Annibale G.

[earleygallery]

You want a minilab processor - should be quite a few s/h machines going as places like supermarkets and chemists stop offering 1 hour processing. I've seen them on ebay from time to time, there must be minilab dealers out there.

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[masjah]

You want a minilab processor - should be quite a few s/h machines going as places like supermarkets and chemists stop offering 1 hour processing. I've seen them on ebay from time to time, there must be minilab dealers out there.

 

James, can you do conventional B/W (as distinct from C41 chromogenic) in a minilab? (A question not a criticism!)

[Annibale G.]

I was talking something that allow to develop manually the film, like with the tank but with more film inside.

[bocaburger]

40-50 rolls? I'm pretty sure that would involve a custom build. An opaque plastic or stainless steel bucket, or a sink with a water-tight light-tight lid, big enough to hold half a dozen 8-reel stacks. It would need a light-tight way to fill and drain it, and some means of agitating enough but not so much to cause undue turbulence. I'm thinking a carousel inside the base, like a lazy susan, with a rod through the lid (light sealed) and a crank on the outside. Maybe there's some way to convert a clothes washing machine I'm just brainstorming. I'm sure if this was practical, someone would've made one by now. A used mini-lab would definitely be the way I'd go.

[ndjambrose]

For those quantities you need a mini-lab processor or a dip and dunk processor. I don't believe there are any manual tanks larger than you're using now. It's difficult to design a manual processing tank for 40-50 rolls, mainly for two reasons.

 

The first is you'd need controlled delivery of chemicals across all the rolls. It takes too long to pour the developer in using conventional light-tight designs, so by the time you'd topped the tank at roll 50 you'd find rolls 1-10 would already be well into development. It wouldn't be possible to control the development process to adequate tolerances.

 

The second is it's too hard to manoeuvre a tank that size, especially when filled with liquid. Inversions would be difficult and risk of accident quite high.

 

The only solution to large quantities of film is moving away from tanks. Either drop the rolls into the chemicals at the same time (dip and dunk) or feed the rolls sequentially into a constantly moving system (minilab). Or build your own with drainage tubes and central feed and internal agitation - like the suggestion above.

 

Commercial processors crop up on the internet quite often, and frequently for not much money. They often have a very large footprint though, which tends to be the biggest obstacle to home use. You'll need 40 square feet of space for some of them.

Edited September 18, 2010 by ndjambrose

[Allen in Montreal]

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40 rolls at a time?

That is out of reach of almost everything but high end pro labs.

 

Maybe you should look at manual tank and rack processing.

 

3 1/2 Gal stainless tanks, with racks that hold 12 to 18 rolls per batch.

I can't find a picture to post, but a rack fills the tank and has several vertical rods.

Place the reels on the rods and work the entire basket through the process.

You need one rack, but 4 3 1/2 Gal tanks. (5 if you want to rinse between fixer and hypo clearing)

Edited September 19, 2010 by Allen in Montreal

[rob_x2004]

Probably the most economical way of building a twenty tank, (or longer if you have a ladder:rolleyes:) is to use a meter long piece of sewer pipe with glued bottom cap, for each chemical. Bonus is that the pipe internal diameter is reel diameter plus about half inch. Dont go using storm pipe will you. It would probably last but it just isnt as robust. You could use a threaded cap top end, for after so you can store the still filled tanks.

 

Make a long spindle from electrical conduit. If you are careful you can either get the diameter to fit your reels, or split a length and glue it to the side to of the handle pack the diameter.

 

Cost is about sweet FA. Visit your friendly plumbers supplies.

 

You will need to work out your times for twist and chug rather than inverting, replenish stock, and use a dark room for when you move the reeled films between separate dev stop and fix tanks.

 

Alternatively you can easily make a welded PVC tank with a frame to hang negatives to dip and dunk but your chemicals quants go through the roof and so does the cost of materials and fabrication for no appreciable gain.

 

 

Ps ... In the olden days when we left the boat in the garage and went rock hopping I had a tow float made the same way that would take a stainless thermos, sharp knife, and the car keys. Climb out onto a reef or something and have a coffee or tea and oyster...or raw fish:o when you got hungry.

Edited September 19, 2010 by rob_x2004

[MPerson]

I played with a manual deep tank and rack system some years ago. I does however have its own inherent problems the worst being surge/pump marks. I found the best way was to place an empty reel on the rod first, then a loaded reel, then an empty reel and so on. This allowed the chemicals to flow better when lifting the rack but reduces the capacity.

 

Obviously you cannot invert the tanks! You lift and tilt the rack in one of four different directions each time, so you do not repeat the exact same pattern.

 

As I was only doing B&W I had 4 tanks: developer, water stop, fix and wash. Even so, the costs of running a tank system are obviously more than using 8 reel tanks. You also need to consider which developer/replenisher you will use. D76, XTOL and Panthermic 777 spring to mind.

 

At the end of the day I gave up with it as I had inconsistent results despite keeping to the same method every time.

 

I have seen a system a chap put together using four small cistern tanks bought from a plumbers merchant.

 

You can pick up tanks and other bits from:

 

Secondhand Darkroom Supplies

[Annibale G.]

maybe the rack is the best choice.

[Xmas]

hi

 

I normally batch 3-4 8x or 5x tanks in normal bath, If I had more tanks I could do more.

 

Fill each tank with 1:100 Rodinal, leave 120 minutes...

 

Empty and fill each with tap water it is normally at 20C anyway.

 

Empty in turn and fill with partly exhausted fixer (from previous batch, tank to tank) 6-10 minutes each, do bigger tanks first. Skip this step unless poor.

 

Empty in turn and fill with fresh fix 3-6 minutes tank to tank, retain for next batch, for previous step.

 

Fit print wash syphon to bath drain hole spill loose reels into bath in turn, chuck in some wash aid, run shower hot for 5, hang over bath, squeegee. You need separators for the sprials as they enter the bath 4-8 minutes apart (typically) unless you want to over wash the first batch

 

Stick reels in airing cupboard for 24.

 

This is with fast fix slower with sodium fix...

 

You need lots of reels and clips, use plastic cloth pins (pegs) for weight at bottom...

 

Noel

Edited September 19, 2010 by Xmas

[tobey bilek]

A neighbor is selling 3 16 reel tanks, two lift rods, 32 reels, and stainless waterjacket.

 

Tanks and reels are 100% Nikor. They were used in his wedding business and he bought only the best.

 

Send a PM. No idea of price. He tends to be expensive.

 

Other option is a deep tank for 8x10 film. They develope 35 on reels with a lift rod perfectly. Twisting lift, tip 30 deg, twisting opposite reimmerse. Repeat. Rest 45 sec, repeat the double lift/drain sequence. Guaranteed sucess.

[pico]

How about a reel carrier to handle 30 rolls of 35mm film, and a tank with nitrogen-burst agitation. (Nitrogen to avoid oxidation, but you can use air, especially if you use one-shot developer such as D76/ID11 1:3 or Rodinal).

 

You can see a picture of such a setup on USA ebay. Search for item 220567192602, and 370400462610.

[Annibale G.]

maybe something like the steel carrier will be good. I was aking myself about development time and agitation with a system like that.

With the 8 reels tank I develop Tri-X 400 with D76 1:1 for 12:15 and I rotate the tank every minute. What will be the dvelping time with a system like that? will remain th same? How to make agitation manually?

Thanks.

[tobey bilek]

If the agitation scheme is exactly the same, the times will not change. Achieving EXACTLY the same agitation is difficult. That said, the difference between continuous and one agitation cycle per minute is about 15%. Any change you make with common manual agitation techniques is very minimal so long as they performed at the same time intervals. Going from 30 sec intervals to 60 sec intervals is 10% +, again assuming you are agitating sufficiently to seplace all the spent developer. Where you get into trouble is if you think the agitation is sufficient and it is not. One inversion of a full tank is probably insufficient. The way to tell is look an even toned subject and see if the edges of the frame are the same density as the edges. If you have higher neg density and light edges on the print with a dark center, the agitation is insufficient. Two inversion cycles are probably a minimum at once per minute.

[pico]

maybe something like the steel carrier will be good. I was aking myself about development time and agitation with a system like that.

With the 8 reels tank I develop Tri-X 400 with D76 1:1 for 12:15 and I rotate the tank every minute. What will be the dvelping time with a system like that? will remain th same? How to make agitation manually?

Thanks.

 

Kodak's corporate site can tell you everything you need to know. Go to the source.

[tobey bilek]

Kodak site will tell you deep-large tanks require longer time. But that is because the recommended agitation is different. Go back to my above post so you understand.

[adan]

On the original subject, the pros and cons of a dip-and-dunk carrier in square tanks has been well-covered. It is the most manageable and flexible way to handle really large film volumes.

 

On the side-topic of mini-lab processors being useful for classic silver processing: All a minilab machine does is move the film through a series of tanks in continuous motion. There is no reason why regular silver chemicals cannot be subsituted for the C-41 chemicals, with some planning and elbow grease.

 

Nominally, C-41 machines are set up with the film spending twice as much time in the FIX and BLEACH tanks (6:30) as it does in the DEV and WASH tanks (3:15). This is controlled by the depth of the roller racks (visible in the bottom image here: http://www.footprintsequipment.com/images/photos/4284/2500/Noritsu.jpg)

 

I.E. as the film is moving at a constant speed, the longer the U-shaped path through each tank, the more time is spent in each tank.

 

By retrofitting the racks to custom depths, one can vary the time spent in any of the tanks. And if one needs more than the nominal max. C-41 time of 6:30, the speed of film passage can also be controlled with a rheostat.

 

Juggling the travel time and the depth of the racks (and temperature), one can probably get standard times suitable for a given B&W film, developer, and fixer combination. Changing that time for a different film and developer will require some major rebuilding every time, so one would want to standardize on a film and developer, or at least a few that can run in the same chems for the same times (perhaps with an adjustment to shooting ISO)

 

C-41 runs at 100°F, so likely one would also need to fiddle with the thermo control to get a cooler setting - 68F/20C or thereabouts.

 

I'm not sure a minilab would be more time-effective or cost-effective than D&D tank processing, though. 35mm films take about 3 minutes to load two at a time, so 20 rolls may take 30 minutes of baby-sitting the loading box. It depends on whether one will be less bored sitting on a stool feeding the machine - or in the dark agitating 20-roll film tanks.

 

D&D will be more flexible for changes in film type, and easier to clean. Cleaning the rollers and racks and tanks of a Noritsu is a real pain - once a week.

[Allen in Montreal]

Thank you Pico,

 

Annibale, the racks shown in Pico's post are what I was referring to.

 

There are two versions, one has much more open spaces by using posts, not solid walls. Either will do the trick well.

 

For large volumes of film, one an irregular basis, I think this will be inexpensive and suit your needs well.

 

I would consider D-76 1:1 or X-tol at 1:1.

Mix 2 gallons of soup, 4 gallons of working solution.

"D-76: Discard after 9600 sq inches per gallon. Or 120 35mm rolls".

Agitation will not be an issue, just stick to the same habits.

 

Best regards,

Allen

 

 

How about a reel carrier to handle 30 rolls of 35mm film, and a tank with nitrogen-burst agitation. (Nitrogen to avoid oxidation, but you can use air, especially if you use one-shot developer such as D76/ID11 1:3 or Rodinal).

 

You can see a picture of such a setup on USA ebay. Search for item 220567192602, and 370400462610.

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[pico]

[...]

On the side-topic of mini-lab processors being useful for classic silver processing: All a minilab machine [...]

 

As Andy mentioned in the article, there are a lot of adjustments required of a MiniLab to do regular B&W.

 

The Kodak Versamat was a machine intended for B&W, and it worked fairly well. Some newspapers used the Versamat for a bit. (The Rocky was one.) There is an aerial photography place in Florida that uses one for almost all films from 9" wide to 2 1/4".

 

Regarding the 30-roll dip and dunk tank - be careful with agitation. It is tempting to over-agitate, but such causes surging, turbulence that can cause overdevelopment by the edge of the reels. Negatives with that problem are horrible to print. That's why nitrogen burst agitation is best.

Edited September 24, 2010 by pico