anyone used a paterson orbital

AshleyC

AshleyC

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Just got mine out of the cupboard with a view to using it for 5x4 development and a few questions.

Its supposed to be light sealed? Its just that i can see where you pour the liquid in through the middle, but how should it come out? If i tip the tray up then it pours out of the seal between base and lid which means if liquid can come out, light can get in?

Temperature control? With such small amounts of liquid in a large tray the temp is bound to drop from 38 degrees pretty quickly, even if you pre heat the base with hot water its going to drop over the 6 or 7 mins dev time? Any suggestions on keeping the temp constant?
 
It should be lightproof. I will have a look at mine later. I think there might be a removable piece where you pour the liquid in.

It should pour out from one corner.

I have scored the base of mine to make sure the film doesn't stick. If you don't do that, either the anti halation layer doesn't wash off or the emulsion doesn't get developed - depending on which way up you put the film. I always do it emulsion up.

At 38 degrees, I assume you are doing colour. I have only used mine for black and white which is more or less room temperature. You could experiment with water. Start a bit high and see what it drops to so on average it is correct.

EDIT: The fourth picture here shows the removable funnel part.

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/ps how orbital.html


Steve.
 
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It works as the edge of the tray and the lip of the lid forms a sort of hard cornered S shape, where there's no direct path for the light to take, and as the black plastic isn't reflective (and the gap is very thin) then light can't get in. There's no baffles or extra things on mine and it works fine

I agree with @Steve Smith re the scoring the base. You will get much more even development if you make small channels (a light dremeling is a good option), although I found the results ok with sufficient pre-soaking of B&W. Never tried colour, so can't say whether the grooves are helpful for that

Re keeping the temperature consistent, I can't say I've seen issues with B&W dev'ing, but could you not keep it in a water bath, so the base is in the water but it doesn't go over the lip?
 
thanks for the replies, the light seal makes a bit more sense now ta :) Ive got the motor base for it so cant sit it in water. I'll have a test run with some hot water just to see how long the base can hold a temp and see how it goes.
 
The volume of liquid will have a bearing on how quickly it cools. The Orbital works with a ridiculously low volume but you could always double or treble it to slow the cooling down a bit.


Steve.
 
hmm well i dont think the orbital is going to be usable for E6, B&W might be fine. Just ran some tests, prewarmed the tray for 5 mins at 40 degrees then poured in the 200ml of water at 38 and after 7 minutes it had dropped to 33 degrees, far too much of a drop methinks. Ive got a Jobo processor but that uses more chems which is a shame.
 
O.K. It dropped five degrees.

If you start 2.5 degrees higher at 40.5 and it drops to 35.5, it should average out.

I don't really know if colour developer will work properly like that - black and white does though.

The other method is to not use the motorised base and float it in a bath of warm water.


Steve.
 
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E-6 needs to be more stable than that Steve.
 
yeah its a bit like nitro glycerene :) the dev booklet says that it has to be within half a degree either side of 38! so i think a 5 degree drop will be far too much even averaging out. I might bung a couple of sheets in it just out of interest though.
 
AshleyC said:
yeah its a bit like nitro glycerene :) the dev booklet says that it has to be within half a degree either side of 38! so i think a 5 degree drop will be far too much even averaging out. I might bung a couple of sheets in it just out of interest though.
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Something of a thread from the dead here but I just remembered that I have one of these and wondered if you did any further testing with colour negs.
Anyone else used one for colour sheets?
 
Thanks for that Peter, some useful info there.
I think I will give it a go with a couple of test shots. I've been having trouble developing with mod54 and Paterson tanks, lots of water marks and some uneven development, so thought I'd give this a go.
 
Glad you resurrected this thread, Andy. I'm interested in these, partly because of the awkwardness of the taco approach, (tat I've used all of once!), but also because of the huge quantity (900 ml!) of chems the latter uses. Still to find a reasonable looking Orbital, though. B&W will do fine for me...
 
ChrisR said:
Glad you resurrected this thread, Andy. I'm interested in these, partly because of the awkwardness of the taco approach, (tat I've used all of once!), but also because of the huge quantity (900 ml!) of chems the latter uses. Still to find a reasonable looking Orbital, though. B&W will do fine for me...
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I've just made up a 5 litre pack of XTOL (that I've had kicking about for years) and am intending to use it as a replenished developer. There's a long thread at the link below about doing this, but the basic method is to retain the developer you've just used (instead of discarding it) and replenish it by 70ml of fresh dev for each film you've developed. One of the attractions of this would be that you could still use 900ml to develop even a single sheet, but you're only discarding 70ml of that 900ml.

Obviously I haven't actually tried this yet, but it might be worth trying while waiting for a decent orbital to come up?
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/using-and-replenishing-xtol.144796/
 
dmb said:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Paterson...854065?hash=item1ef3d530f1:g:xXkAAOSwqLRcVvbg one of those ? not sure complete and only 20 mins to go but a bit longer on this one
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Paterson...441707&hash=item2ac37948a1:g:AyoAAOSwg0dcVxjU
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You really need the 4 red separation pegs to work with anything less than 10x8. The first one only had 1 and the second doesn't have any. There is a bit of the lid broken off at bottom right of the second one, and that might just affect whether or not it is light-tight.
 
... and I missed them both, anyway, David! I also don't have a dremel to score them, so I'd prefer one pre-prepared, so to speak. But that's just being fussy!

Peter, I don't think I'll be into replenishment as such, but I did think about re-using with adjusted times. I think there was a thread about it earlier, but roughly I think you assume that 6 ml of HC 110 is needed to process one roll of 135, roughly 40 sqinch. So, say 3 4*5 sheets as tacos (I couldn't fit the 4th taco in properly) works out as 60 sqinch. Dilution B is (IIRC) 1+31, so 900 ml takes about 30 ml of concentrate, of which the 3 sheets uses up 9 ml, leaving you with a roughly 1+45 dilution. Then there's a formula for how you adjust the dev time for the next session (can't remember if you add a third or a half in this case). I thought doing this once would be interesting; I don't think I'd like to try to squeeze much more out of it!

(I did think I might try this with this month's #FP4Party, as I thought I'd use a couple of you sheets of FP4 plus a roll of 135, but I only managed to shoot the 135, sadly).
 
Actually thinking about it, 4 sheets of 4*5 in an Orbital would be 80 sqinch, needing 12 ml of HC 110, at 1+31 that's a minimum of 384 ml of Dilution B needed. Does the Orbital take that much? Or have I got something wrong?
 
ChrisR said:
Actually thinking about it, 4 sheets of 4*5 in an Orbital would be 80 sqinch, needing 12 ml of HC 110, at 1+31 that's a minimum of 384 ml of Dilution B needed. Does the Orbital take that much? Or have I got something wrong?
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The Roger Hicks article linked in post #11 above says:
chemical volumes

Regardless of the quantity of film being developed, the Orbital requires a minimum of 55 ml (two ounces) of processing chemicals, though most people use a little more: anything from 75 to 150 ml (3 to 6 ounces). With such tiny volumes, 'one shot' processing is entirely feasible.

Do not be deceived by those who suggest that this is not enough developer. Most of the developer, in any tank, is used for wetting the film quickly and evenly: the amount of developer that does the work is a teaspoonful or two.
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Interesting, Peter. BTW I think my calculations were wrong, I was taking 135 film as being an inch wide, but of course it's 35mm wide which is 1.4 inches so the roll of 40+ frames is over 80 sqinch.

Can anyone who uses one regularly comment, please?
 
I've used mine with Rodinal, and I use 150ml just so that the dilution is accurate enough at 1+50 or even 1+25. I tend not to develop 4 sheets at once, but usually 2 as I only roughened 2 quadrants in case it scratched the film.
 
ChrisR said:
David! I also don't have a dremel to score them, so I'd prefer one pre-prepared, so to speak. But that's just being fussy!
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I saw a YouTube video where the chap, and I can't remember his name but if you search for Paterson Orbital it's the only one, just used the little transparent rubber sticky blobs to keep the film off the base. I've just put 4 tiny blobs of superglue in each quarter which I'm hoping will do the same job.
 
Andysnap said:
Something of a thread from the dead here but I just remembered that I have one of these and wondered if you did any further testing with colour negs.
Anyone else used one for colour sheets?
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Blimey, here's a blast from the past. Annoyingly I haven't taken a single photo all year, I've spent every weekend just working on the ruin of a house I bought!

But I just found that I couldn't control the temperature well enough so bit the bullet and bought a jobbo processor. They're expensive for what they are but it made life so much easier.
 
Andysnap said:
to keep the film off the base. I've just put 4 tiny blobs of superglue in each quarter which I'm hoping will do the same job.
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As I've just took a punt on an orbital which hasn't had any dremel , or other modification done to it ( yet!), I'd appreciate knowing if this method works Andy so please do let us know;)
 
Asha said:
As I've just took a punt on an orbital which hasn't had any dremel , or other modification done to it ( yet!), I'd appreciate knowing if this method works Andy so please do let us know;)
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We'll, as it 'appens I have just devved 4 sheets of Fomapan which are drying as we speak. Early days yet but they seem to have developed evenly except on one sheet which may have a small area along the shirt side which butted against the tank which looks darker. More will be revealed this evening.
 
So, here are the 2 images that had the problem.
Small 2 by Andy, on Flickr
Small 1 by Andy, on Flickr

They were from the same darkslide so there is a possibility that the problem is with that however I'm thinking that it is more likely to be from the negs butting up against the sie of the tank and therefore not getting the same development time.

The dots of superglue seem to have worked ok though.
 
Cheers Andy, very helpful.

How big are the dots of superglue and are they sporadic or specifically located in the base? ( show a photo possibly??)

I don't know yet which method I'm going to use to keep the film from sticking as the dremel grooves appears popular and I also came across someone who used silicon sealant.
 
I would have used silicon if I'd had any but I just popped four dots in each quarter of the tank, pics to follow.
 
@OwenM , if you have a sale or give-away, could you put it in the appropriate section down in the classifieds please?
 
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