Experience with Nova Monochrome Print Processors?

[foggie]

I was curious to see if vertical printing trays existed I found this in some search results:

Nova Monochrome Print Processors
http://www.theimagingwarehouse.com/ProductGrp/Nova-Monochrome-Print-Processor

It seems ideal! It would tighten-up processing so much that I'd be able to do 11x14 (or larger) fibre prints in my tiny apartment bathroom. Not only that but it features the ability to hold onto the chemicals for multiple weeks which means less waste for quick printing jobs and I wouldn't have to dedicate an entire day to the darkroom. One could make a few prints and then put the machine away for another day with chemicals inside.

Does anyone have experience with these devices? Are there any North American distributors? The only threads I can find on these Nova machines are several years old. Some more information would be great.

Perhaps as a cheaper option someone could recommend upright printing trays too.

 

[aizan]

they're very rare in the us, but not that hard to find in the uk. i wish i had one!

 

[pixelated]

I have a Nova Quad which is a 4 slot processor with a heated water jacket.
They are great if you need to work in a small space. Mine can handle 11x14 (12x16, actually). I'd be hard pressed to find space for 4 11x14 trays without it.

Jobo used to distribute them in the U.S. They come up occasionally on ebay, which is how I got mine, but no, they aren't plentiful on this side of the pond.

Not sure how bad the shipping would be from the UK, but if you contact them I'm sure they could give you an estimate. They are very friendly and responsive folks to deal with. I've purchased parts twice, shipping is generally about 5 days to the east coast.

The floating lid and small surface area mean that the developer keeps forever, which is one of the other nice features. The heated ones like mine were originally sold for doing color work, but I've only done B&W in mine. I keep mine going most of the time, it's minimum setting is right around 68, so in the winter when the house is often a little cooler, my chemicals are always ready to rock and roll. I can walk into the darkroom and be printing in 5 minutes, less if I'm in a hurry.

The only downside is doing multiples is not so easy, doing something like two 5x7's isn't so bad, but you can't take a stack of prints and shuffle them through like you can in trays. I've occasionally done two 8x10's back to back in the clip, it's possible, but there isn't much room in the slot, and it's hard to get good flow around the emulsion if you do that.

 

[foggie]

I have a Nova Quad which is a 4 slot processor with a heated water jacket.
They are great if you need to work in a small space. Mine can handle 11x14 (12x16, actually). I'd be hard pressed to find space for 4 11x14 trays without it.

Jobo used to distribute them in the U.S. They come up occasionally on ebay, which is how I got mine, but no, they aren't plentiful on this side of the pond.

Not sure how bad the shipping would be from the UK, but if you contact them I'm sure they could give you an estimate. They are very friendly and responsive folks to deal with. I've purchased parts twice, shipping is generally about 5 days to the east coast.

The floating lid and small surface area mean that the developer keeps forever, which is one of the other nice features. The heated ones like mine were originally sold for doing color work, but I've only done B&W in mine. I keep mine going most of the time, it's minimum setting is right around 68, so in the winter when the house is often a little cooler, my chemicals are always ready to rock and roll. I can walk into the darkroom and be printing in 5 minutes, less if I'm in a hurry.

The only downside is doing multiples is not so easy, doing something like two 5x7's isn't so bad, but you can't take a stack of prints and shuffle them through like you can in trays. I've occasionally done two 8x10's back to back in the clip, it's possible, but there isn't much room in the slot, and it's hard to get good flow around the emulsion if you do that.

Thanks for coming out of lurking to answer my question.

Do you have any pictures of your Nova? The only one I can find is the tiny image at the top of the screen.

I was thinking of the 3-tray Monochrome version because it's cheaper, I don't do colour, and it doesn't get that cold where I currently live. My bathtub could fit the 3-tray Monochrome one (dev, stop, fix) plus two 11x14 tanks (hypo clearing agent, wash) so I'd be set for fiber.

I don't do multiples of anything yet. I'm far too slow for that but it's good to know in case I ever get quick at it.

 

[pschauss]

I special ordered one from B&H a number of years ago. Mine is an 8"x10" three slot processor. It works great for 5x7 prints and contact sheets. For 8x10s it has a tendency to leave an imprint of the pebble texture from the plastic sides on the print unless you agitate. Most of my larger prints are 11x14 or 11x11 and for those I use a drum processor.

One downside is that the drain spigots are placed half way up the sides of the slots so that you cannot refill a single slot. Thus, if the fixer exhausts before the developer and the stop bath, which it usually does, you can only replace half of it.

Still, it does save me on setup time and allows me to drop into my darkroom for short period to make a few prints.

 

[pixelated]

I don't have a picture of mine handy, but Roger Hicks's darkroom page has a couple;
http://www.rogerandfrances.com/darkroom.html

One of these days I'm going to cut a hole in my counter and inset my quad like he's done.

re: agitation, yes, you can't just leave a print sitting, you need to agitate continuously, at least for the first minute or so. But you need to agitate in a tray too, I don't view it as a limitation.

Didn't know about the spigots on the monochrome, on mine they are at the base of the slots, so empty and refill is not difficult when needed.