Midtone Machines film processor

Larry Cloetta

Larry Cloetta

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Not sure if this has been posted before, but here is a (another) potential new film processor. Out of New Zealand from an aerospace engineer who apparently recognizes the primacy of good midtones, always a good sign.

As always, the odds are stacked against anyone developing, manufacturing, and marketing a viable and superior processor in today’s market, but this project seems better thought out than the Filmomat, to me at least.

Only posting in case someone might find it interesting, as he doesn’t seem to have much exposure here.
There are internal links on the homepage which gives more information on the thinking behind the design.

One always hopes for the emergence of the better, and/or more affordable mousetrap.

http://midtonemachines.com/
 
Hey all I'm the 'creator' of Midtone Machines, got word that there was a thread here talking about it so I made an account. Thanks for the interest! If you have any questions I'm happy to answer them in the thread.

Currently designing two PCB's to act as an interface between the arduino controlling the whole thing and all of my motors, sensors etc. I was considering soldiering on with the mess of wiring I currently have but eventually decided to not waste time and go to the design solution I intend to end up with, it will take more time in the short term but I'll end up ahead in the long term.
 
Looks great. Just a thought, on your breakout board make sure you have it on standoffs or some other way of raising it up. Don’t want an accidental leak submerging it.

Shawn
 
shawn said:
Looks great. Just a thought, on your breakout board make sure you have it on standoffs or some other way of raising it up. Don’t want an accidental leak submerging it.

Shawn
Click to expand...

Yep it's going to be on standoffs, you're right I've thought about the possibility of leaks and so I'll be making sure that everything electronic that isn't fully sealed is well above the base plate. I might also look at some kind of splash cover for it in case there's a spraying leak (although I think that's less likely, the pipework will hardly deal with any pressure).
 
Another update, new custom PCBs are in and they've done a great job clearing up all the wiring mess, a much better solution for production. A few niggles with the pinch valves are holding me back a bit but I've still had the machine pumping water in and out of the developing tank with the agitation motor going. Again pretty close to being able to develop B&W film right now but I'd rather iron out all of the bugs before that.

http://midtonemachines.com/news/pcbs-integrated-and-more-cad/
 
Throwing this out there as someone who has used a JOBO for a number of years. There will be water spilled on the machine, that's a guarantee. If you haven't already, consider a gasket around the LCD bezel and any other place spilled water can land on the machine. Jobo had a retrofit to add o-rings abound the control knobs. Cheers!
 
nbagno said:
Throwing this out there as someone who has used a JOBO for a number of years. There will be water spilled on the machine, that's a guarantee. If you haven't already, consider a gasket around the LCD bezel and any other place spilled water can land on the machine. Jobo had a retrofit to add o-rings abound the control knobs. Cheers!
Click to expand...


Fair point, a flat rubber gasket around the LCD and a little rubber boot over the joystick would probably be quite easy to implement and could save a lot of hassle if there's an accident. I've already spilled a fair bit of water into the machine itself so far during development so I know how likely it is...
 
Another update, new company logo, some new website banners, shout-outs to people who have been talking about my machine and some more progress:

http://midtonemachines.com/news/new-logo-shout-outs-and-progress/

The machine is now fully capable of processing B&W film, frankly I'm starting to run out of things to do on it which means I'm going to have to turn my attention to more 'boring' things like working out how much they cost to make and marketing/selling them...
 
Managed to print enough valve parts to retrofit the prototype and the leaking is gone. I've also got the heater systems up and running nicely. Here's a really short teaser video of the Chromabox-4 in action, cycling through 6 different 'chemicals' one after the other. What you don't see is the automatic water and air flush cycles that happen between different chemicals to prevent cross-contamination (which would have been visible in the video as colour contamination between the different bottles).


https://youtu.be/-Y_88YVmjBs
 
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