Developing a fully automatic film processor kit?

[Sirius Glass]

Hewes reels will no work in Jobo tanks. The reels must attach to the center rod and rotate with it. Not spin freely.

[raoul]

Mick is right - the more people that have other solutions ready the better.

[Paul Green]

Hewes reels will no work in Jobo tanks. The reels must attach to the center rod and rotate with it. Not spin freely.

I believe Hewes made SS reels for Jobo tanks.

[Steve Smith]

Any of you interested to help the electronics novice here with the project?

Theres probably not much money to be made from this

As an non code writing (not good quality code anyway) electronics and mechanical engineer, If I can help, I will. And I don't want to make any money out of it.


Steve.

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Try to import from USA within a container with partial shipment. It saves you from lots of expense. Singapore is one of the largest port in the world and they have a big infrastructure. If the shipper send with a forwarder , forwarder can rip you when they give you the bill of lading. So ask the shipper to learn every cost to you. Its hard , time consuming but cheap.
An Sax cost you to ship from China to Istanbul 125 dollars with UPS but shipment of a motorcycle from sea cost you 15 dollars.

Umut

[losheng]

Matt: thank you for the reference! I will surely get in touch with Tony to explore the area of collaboration!

Steve: I'll most appreciate your help! Let me try to put the idea into a drawing to seek your opinion on the feasibility of the approach! I'll PM you as soon as I'm done with a simple drawing. (I could have make the drawing faster if I had paid more attention in the CAD classes!!) I will most definitely need help with the finer points of electronics and mechanical design. Collaboration is a lot easier when profit making is out of the way. My main wish is to help build a platform that will allow film shooters to continue to enjoy the craft. Hopefully that will play a small part to help keep the analog photography art alive.

Mustafa: Thanks for the tip! I frequently make purchases from the US, and I know that shipping via the normal channels are a lot more expensive than they need to be. I've wondered if there's a way to commoditize shipping via order collation on the internet. But that's a topic for another day :-) If you know anyone that I can speak to, I would definitely appreciate a recommendation.

Though I still do keep a look out for a good value CPE/CPP/CPA set, I have slight reservation on the value-for-money part of the system (especially the shipping part), and the 'incompleteness' of the approach. Since both C41 and E6 are standardized processes with tight tolerances, they should really be automated, fully, at a affordable price. So I guess I am really hoping for a $3-500 Super SideKick. Poverty drives ingenuity - can't blame me for dreaming!

[Mike Wilde]

I am going more manual for my film processing rig.

I am developing (no pun intended) a sink line to be housed in a DIY insulated tempering box that will indirectly heat the tanks via a circulating, heated water bath. I am planning an insulated lid to sit over the whole thing to cut heat loss, and evaporative loss in the water bath when it is coming up to temp, or when it is not in use.

The chems will sit in 4x5 hard rubber tanks with floating lids. I plan on using this for combined b&w, c-41 and e-6 processing, mostly for 4x5 film on hangers.

Processing 35mm and 120/220 films on reels, suspeneded on stainless supports to sit in the hard rubber tanks, when I want to use this instead of daylight tanks is an option as well.

I already have a vintage Vivitar process timer that can be programmed to run times for c-41 or e-6 or any less than 18 step process, and warns you audibly when to pull and drian, and when to change the load to the next tank.

I plan to manually agitate, and wash by setting the wash tank under a stream from the sink faucet, or to build a custom wash tank to spray up from the bottom.

I had pondered something more complex, but the challenges of different processes, and their differeing chems and replenish rates and expiry once used times, coupled with my modest volumes, made me choose this more manual, but simpler arrangement.