Thread: Print washers
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Old 11th November 2012, 05:54 PM
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Martin Aislabie Martin Aislabie is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dsallen View Post
Hi there,

the width of the slots is not critical.
Don't totally agree

The width of the slot is a significant characteristic

The narrower the better - provided you can manage a nice rough surface texture on the opposing wall.

What you need to do is achieve turbulent (as opposed to laminar) flow over the entire surface of the print.

That way, you bring fresh clean water into contact with the entire surface of the print and so maximise the chemical gradient between the fixer saturated print and the clean water.

There are practical limits to how narrow the slots can be - as you may need to get your fingers in there to retrieve a print.

It also helps if the partitions slide out from the washer completely - when a print attaches itself to one of the walls it can be surprisingly difficult to dislodge without removing the entire thing from the tank and peeling the print away.

NOVA use a surface called "Crushed Ice" to achieve the turbulent flow

If you can only get hold of smooth sheets of plastic then small dabs of smooth headed Araldite every 1cm will do a reasonable job of acting as turbulators.

Martin
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