Flexicolor Minlab F1 and F2 Kit questions. C-41 newbie

[engineerchris]

I have been lurking for a while, but this is my first post on APUG. A brief intro, I have been a semipro digital shooter for the last 4 years or so. About 6 months ago I developed and obsession with all things film. Since then I have been shooting personal family shots all on film, and my paid work has been mixed film and digital.

I process most of my film (all B&W and ~50% C-41) in hand tanks with CVS getting the other 50% of my c-41 film. I do this mostly because my confidence and technique is not fully up to speed, but I am working on it. I have been using Tetanol kits for my C-41 up to now

So... On to my question. I did some extensive research that involved redbull and the internets. Kodak Flexicolor seemed to be the product I wanted, but it was nearly impossible to find one retailer (who would ship to Western KY) with any possible combination of starters/replenishers (LORR?), straight ready to use, or mix and fix (SM?). You would think that someone with a credit card and basic understanding of what they want would be able to accomplish the task of buying something. Nope. The one exception being the Photographer's Formulary kit, but it is rated for 10 rolls of film. I am trying to buy for more like 100+ rolls.

So as luck (good or bad, hard to tell at this point) would have it. I found a small supply of the Flexicolor SM Chemistry in processor kits for what seemed to be reasonable pricing.

Unit F1 Mfr# 8740110
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...rocessing.html

and
Unit F2 Mfr# 1173319
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...rocessing.html

This thread was the closest I came to finding a path forward.
http://www.apug.org/forums/forum40/6...xing-jobo.html

I did some due diligence from the MSDS and boxes and have confirmed the following. Unit F1 has 4 parts, 3 part developer and one final rinse. Unit F2 has one parts fixer and one part bleach. The F1 processor is rated for 900 rolls. The F2 is 260 rolls. So armed with what I thought was enough info, I bought 1 F1 and 3 F2 kits. My expectation was to reverse calculate the needed volumes and mix up one shot batches of developer with generous replacement and reuse of the other chemicals. Obviously I did not expect 900 rolls of total capacity, but it should last me much longer than 10 roll batch mixing.

However, when the boxes arrived the units were much smaller than I expected. This makes them much more concentrated that I expected. For example the largest compartment of Developer component is roughly 400ml. The whole F1 kit is about the size of 2 shoeboxes.


So now I am left with a few critical questions.
1. Where do I go now to figure out a mixing recipe.
2. Are the chemicals in the F1 and F2 identical to the standard Sm chemistry but in a more concentrated form.
3. If they aren't identical do I need a starter.
4. Should I just punt, write it off as a dumb idea, and keep letting CVS do my processing.

TLDR; version
Does anyone know how to use the F1 and F2 SM Minilab Flexicolor kits for hand tank/ Jobo processing.

Thanks very much in advance for any help you can offer.

[EdSawyer]

No idea what the dilutions on those kits are. If you can figure it out, let us know as they might be more economical than the other methods.

One place I have found all the chemistry and they will ship is pakor.com. Hazmat charges run fairly high via them and UPS for some things.

Adorama will sell and ship everything except the bleach, so that's another source.

A 5gal developer batch in my experience will process about 225 rolls of 120 or 35mm used 1-shot in a Super Sidekick. That's using the normal Flexicolor chemistry.

-Ed

[anikin]

These are the kits for automatic processor that mixes the chemistry on the fly. I suspect the best bet for you would be to call Kodak tech support and ask them directly for mixing instructions. If you are not afraid of little experimentation, you can try mixing based on ratios in Kodak's z101 document, page 2-1. Get the document, but it lists the ratios as follows:

Developer (3m15s @100F):
Part A 0.959
Part B 0.120
Part C 0.442
Water 11.48

Bleach (1m @ 100F) Don't mix, use as is

Fixer (2m @ 100F)
Concentrate 7.55
Water 7.55

Final Rinse (1m @ 100F)
Concentrate 0.483
Water 26.8

Notice, these are ratio values, just multiply by the same constant to get desired target volume. For example, by multiplying developer parts by 77 you'll get about 1L of solution like this:
Water 884mL, Part A 34mL, Part B 9.25mL, Part C 74mL

Remember, mixing order of developer is important: Add Part A to about half amount of water, mix, add part B, mix, add part C, top off to 1 L, mix.

Good luck, and let us know how it comes out!

Eugene.

[fotch]

Unit F1 Mfr# 8740110
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...rocessing.html

and
Unit F2 Mfr# 1173319
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...rocessing.html
..........................
However, when the boxes arrived the units were much smaller than I expected. This makes them much more concentrated that I expected. For example the largest compartment of Developer component is roughly 400ml. The whole F1 kit is about the size of 2 shoeboxes.
.

How did you get B&H to ship this? Their site clearly states "This item is only available for purchase in our superstor"

[markbarendt]

Found this sell sheet http://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/...s/PF3_1067.pdf

Gives a better Idea of what the chemicals are in each kit.

[John Shriver]

Just wondering if you still need developer starter with this kit. You may need to look at Noritsu's manuals.

[brucemuir]

Wow, this info is waaaay farther than I ever got trying to crack this conundrum.

I considered going this way at first also but ended up going with regular Flexicolor because I got lucky and found a Bleach III clone made by some 3rd party.

I may get the F2 just to score some more bleach.

Thanks to EVERYONE for the additional info here! ! !

[danoz73]

what was the result of this? I really want to use flexicolor to develop 4x5's in a JOBO with C41, but I also can't find the instructions.

[markbarendt]

Here's a link to where you can get the Tech Pubs. http://www.kodak.com/global/en/busin...th=12085/12319

The F1 and F2 kits are for mini-labs. There are smaller packages of individual chemicals available.

[engineerchris]

I never used a Jobo but the process should be the same as with any other Flexicolor sets. Anikin's post above with the ratio/recipe worked fine for me. No starter is needed, but you should plan on transferring everything to other containers once you open up the proprietary plastic jug/boxes.