Cleaning bleach and fix racks on film processors

[lucabelga]

Dear fellow photographers and chemists,
Would anyone on this planet have found the product to dissolve the sulphurous residues visible on the plastic racks of films processors (bleach and fix). I think this would help many labs to maintain their film processors. The little information and suggestions at this moment doesn't work.
Thanks in advance.

[Dave S]

I wish there was a magical chemical than could dissolve this.
I use various grades of wet and dry sandpaper used wet.

Kodak suggest this https://kodak.sinopromise.com/uploads/files/tech/cis167.pdf I've not tried it myself!

 

[lucabelga]

Thanks a lot for this ideas and worksheet. I will test it.
Good w-e

 

[Rollin]

There is one product by Fujifilm that does seem to work on sulfide deposits on roller transport processors.  It's FUJIFILM EnviroCHEM Photolab Cleaner (1L).  Not cheap, but well worth the price when labor is concerned.

I've been working in commercial photo labs for over 50 years, and cleaning processors has always been a bane of mine.  We've had Noritsu, Fuji Frontier, Agfa D-Labs, Pako, Eastman Kodak 1411 machines for Kodak EA-5, and some I've already forgotten.  There was never an easy way to do a thorough cleaning, but the Fujifilm EnviroCHEM helped a lot.  I didn't discover it until I was about to retire 6 years ago.

In the lab I was at for almost 40 years we were able to use a heated pressure washer on some of the racks.  We'd put the racks in a large container and take them outside for cleaning.  To conform to environmental regs. all of effluent was pumped down the drain which was monitored by the local wastewater treatment plant.  We maintained our residual silver to almost un-measurable amounts to keep legal.

The other problem we ran into was the Prussian Blue created by the ferricyanide bleach in the EA-5 chemicals. ( I also built an electrolytic bleach re-generator system to satisfy the local authorities.)    

I hope this info helps.     

[davidlam]

i found it in bh -->   https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1354554-REG/fujifilm_600015541_envirochem_photolab_cleaner_1l.html  

[Rollin]

This is the original Eastman Kodak paper I based the construction of our own EA5 bleach re-generator on. 

Mine was an almost exact duplicate based on calculations I made of the required surface area of the type 316 SS Cathode and carbon Anode rods.  The DC power supply I custom built to provide extremely high current at low voltage using off-the-shelf components.  Today, I'd have used a commercially available "Constant Current / Constant Voltage" power supply.

At the time I built this, we were a high volume Aerial lab doing our own processing of Kodak Aerial Mapping films so cost to build was not much of an obstacle. 

 

  https://www.kodak.com/content/products-brochures/Film/Processing-KODAK-Motion-Picture-Films-Module-5.pdf  

[lucabelga]

On 12/20/2022 at 6:28 AM, Rollin said:

There is one product by Fujifilm that does seem to work on sulfide deposits on roller transport processors.  It's FUJIFILM EnviroCHEM Photolab Cleaner (1L).  Not cheap, but well worth the price when labor is concerned.

I've been working in commercial photo labs for over 50 years, and cleaning processors has always been a bane of mine.  We've had Noritsu, Fuji Frontier, Agfa D-Labs, Pako, Eastman Kodak 1411 machines for Kodak EA-5, and some I've already forgotten.  There was never an easy way to do a thorough cleaning, but the Fujifilm EnviroCHEM helped a lot.  I didn't discover it until I was about to retire 6 years ago.

In the lab I was at for almost 40 years we were able to use a heated pressure washer on some of the racks.  We'd put the racks in a large container and take them outside for cleaning.  To conform to environmental regs. all of effluent was pumped down the drain which was monitored by the local wastewater treatment plant.  We maintained our residual silver to almost un-measurable amounts to keep legal.

The other problem we ran into was the Prussian Blue created by the ferricyanide bleach in the EA-5 chemicals. ( I also built an electrolytic bleach re-generator system to satisfy the local authorities.)    

I hope this info helps.     

Thanks a lot and I wish you a very happy festive season

[Dave S]

14 hours ago, lucabelga said:

Thanks a lot and I wish you a very happy festive season

Thank you, Happy festive season to you too.

Let us know how you get on with the cleaning suggestions.