Diafine and Bromide Trails

[rover]

Or what ever they are called.

These streaks were mentioned in one of the other Diafine threads and I was wondering if they were more apt to occur at higher temperatures. I did notice them in a couple frames of the last roll I did, on a warmer day. The soup was in the mid 70s at least. These warm temps are within the range of Diafine use, but perhaps it would be best if I hold my next batch to a cooler morning (no central air in my house) rather than this afternoon in the swampy summer steam.

 

[taffer]

Rover, I had those streaks in a couple rolls, specifically the couple rolls where I decided to use very little (almost none) agitation. Since then, I give the tank a couple slow inversions every 1/1.5 minutes and everything has been fine to the date.

Room temp was probably around 25-28 ºC

 

[tom_f77]

Same here; had some streaks initially, but no problems since settling on two inversions on filling the tank and then one more on the second and third minutes. I leave it for four in each bath because it gives me a bit more time.

I never had any problems I put down to temperature, and it sometimes gets quite hot in an unventilated blacked-out bathroom, even in this country...

Tom

 

[FrankS]

Ralph, I think to that the issue is agitation rather than temp. I use spinning agitation rather than inversions. I pour in sol'n B, tap the tank to get rid of air bubbles, after 1 minute I slowly rotate the reels in the tank 360*, and again after 2 minutes. After 3 minutes once all the development should be finished, I agitate more aggressively for 15 to 30 sec, then pour off. Using this procedure with plastic reels, I (fortunately) have not yet experienced bromide drag.

 

[rover]

Good info guys. The last batch I did was just before my vacation and I was doing 5 things at once. I most likely was very passive with my aggitation which fits in with the info you provide.

 

[T_om]

Good info guys. The last batch I did was just before my vacation and I was doing 5 things at once. I most likely was very passive with my aggitation which fits in with the info you provide.

Yep. The problem is agitation.

Diafine needs very little agitation, but it does need SOME. Almost always, people coming from other developers tend to OVER agitate Diafine, hence all the warnings about not over doing it.

However, sloth can be taken to extremes. 😀

By the way, you will find that using stainless instead of plastic also effects the agitation cycle. I always found that using plastic (when I was forced to 🙁 ) required more agitation than using stainless.

Tom

 

[Nick R.]

I did a batch of 120 tri-x yesterday and it was probably the warmest I'd used Diafine (~75F) so far and no streaks. That's a problem I'd had when I tried to go to reduced agitation. Now I agitate just like the box says.

 

[Doug]

I use spinning agitaion too, just a quarter turn.