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Old 20th June 2020, 04:54 PM
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Martin Aislabie Martin Aislabie is offline
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Default Heiland Film Dryer Review.

After more than 20 years of service, I have retired my Durst film dryer (UT100)
The Durst has in recent years become increasingly noise – the fan becoming ever more reluctant to start up from cold and the fan motor screeched like a banshee when it got up and running.
I had repeatedly looked on eBay for a working replacement fan unit over the last few years but to no avail.
There are film drying cabinets occasionally about on eBay but they are large and have metal cabinets.
I wanted something more akin to my Durst – it hangs on the wall and has a soft film tent.

Redemption for me, came in the shape of the new Heildand Film Dryer – which is aimed to directly fill the gap in the market left by the Durst UT100.
In the UK, it is available from Firstcall.

Desription
The film tent is slightly larger – 30 cm (left/right) x 30 cm (front/rear) compared to the Durst 26 cm (l/r) x20 cm (ft/rr)
The tent is similar in length to the Durst, with a zip in each front corner.
The Heiland film tent is made entirely from heavy duty PVC, which makes the bag slightly stiffer than the Durst, which is noticeable when you first use it but you quickly get used to it and has no functional effect.
There are three rods at the bottom of the fan housing for hanging film clips from – the rods run front to back.
For what it’s worth, I have had to open up slightly the clip feature on my Jobo Film Clips to comfortably fit the hanging rods.
Paterson Film Clips fit without problem.

All the metal parts in the Film Dryer are either anodised Aluminium or laser cut Stainless Steel.

The left-hand control on the Fan Head unit is the fan and heater switch which has four settings :-
• Off
• Fan Only
• Fan with low power heating.
• Fan with high power heating.

The maximum power of the whole unit is 1500W – so there is a lot of heating power available if you want it.

The right-hand control on the Fan Head unit is the discharge air temperature control, which is infinitely variable.
On the underside of the Fan Head unit is a temperature sensor, which the Film Dryer uses to control and regulate the air temperature feeding in to the film tent.
I have not tried the full range of temperature settings, as I prefer to only gently dry my films by blowing lukewarm air in to the film bag.
The Heiland recommended temperature setting is marked on the temperature control.

On top of the Fan Head is an air filter.
On mine the filter is made of reticulated foam (think fish tank filter material).
On the first units in production the filter was made of a denser material to filter out more air particles.
However, the dense air filter reduced the film dryers airflow too much and slowed the film drying time, according to early users.
Heiland are currently reviewing the filter density once again.

FWIW - I have replaced my air filter for car pollen filter material (with much greater density to filter out much smaller air particles) and forego the improved film drying times.


In Use
  • Good Points
The first thing I noticed about the film dryer was how much quieter it was than my very noisy Durst.
Yes, you can hear it running when it is operated on its own but its noise is drowned out by the noise coming from my DeVere transformers cooling fan.

The second obvious thing is the usefulness of the increased in size of the film tent allowing 5 sheets of 5x4 film to be hung side by side (front to rear) on one side of the film tent with a 6 cm (fr/rr) gap between each sheet and then a further 5 sheets in a second row on the other side.
There is almost no chance the sheets of film will manage to touch one another thanks to the increased space available.

Should you wish to, it would be possible to dry 15 x 35mm or 120 rolls of film in the film tent together at the same time, with plenty of clearance.

The film dryer would also be capable of drying 5 sheets of 10x8 film together.

Again, FWIW, I dry 3 prints of 11x14 RC prints together in the film tent at the same time, using the fan only setting to boost their drying rate.


  • Bad Points
My film tent was twisted, so that the bottom of the film tent was rotated with respect to the fan unit.
This problem has absolutely no impact on the functional performance of the film dryer – it just looks odd.
Heiland have acknowledged the twisted film tent is incorrect and have promised to replace it.

The reticulated foam air filter fitted to my dryer will not keep out the minute dust particles that seem so attracted to wet film and force us to spend hours spotting our prints.
(Heiland are reviewing this and may well come up with an improved air filter for future models).

A very minor gripe, but the zippers on the film tent do not have large tags on them for easy gripping with wet fingers.
These are the sort of tags that are present on every Fleece and Ruck Sac sold in the past 15 years, so quite how Heiland managed to miss them is surprising.
However, Heiland have again promised to look in to fitting large tags to their zippers in the future.


Overall
The Heiland Film Tent is a welcome addition to new darkroom equipment portfolio.
Compared to my noisy and admittedly asthmatic Durst UT100, the Heildand is both quicker and quieter.
However, for the price, there were a few early model teething problems, that you would not expect for a company of Heilands reputation for quality.


Martin

Last edited by Martin Aislabie; 20th June 2020 at 05:02 PM.
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  #2  
Old 20th June 2020, 09:50 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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Dare I ask what the Heiland costs, Martin? I admit to be a little jaundiced about Heiland stuff from another reviewer called Henning Serger and a couple of others on Photrio who did not want to concede an inch on what I thought were pretty steep prices

My Durst UT100 still works well and isn't as yet too noisy. Its drying speed is fantastic without any need for the heat to be applied.

Mike
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Old 21st June 2020, 08:18 AM
Tom Kershaw Tom Kershaw is offline
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I use one of the smaller metal drying cabinets for my film, purchased used. It works fine but I've had trouble sourcing spare air filters.
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Old 21st June 2020, 11:35 AM
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PanFrank PanFrank is offline
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Thank you for this excellent review, Martin.
Heiland products are rather expensive, but worth every penny. You buy for a lifetime, plus those of your children and grandchildren. :-)
Same with magnificent Kienzle products. It's all new and world class plus excellent customer service.
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Old 21st June 2020, 11:48 AM
Michael Michael is offline
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Frank, my first wristwatch was a Kienzle, bought for me in about 1951 when we were living in Bad Oeynhausen. At that time the firm still made cheaper watches: mine did me until 1959, though, when my father bought me the French watch that I still wear for a while each year.

Apologies to the OP for this irrelevant post.
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Old 21st June 2020, 01:37 PM
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Miha Miha is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael View Post
Frank, my first wristwatch was a Kienzle, bought for me in about 1951 when we were living in Bad Oeynhausen. At that time the firm still made cheaper watches: mine did me until 1959, though, when my father bought me the French watch that I still wear for a while each year.

Apologies to the OP for this irrelevant post.
There is no connection between the two Kienzle companies.
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Old 21st June 2020, 07:30 PM
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PanFrank PanFrank is offline
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Indeed, I meant Kienzle Fototechnik:http://www.kienzle-phototechnik.de/h...e_english.html
Overview of their products given by Mr. Kienzle at Photokina:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAVBszvhhf4

Heiland also makes one enlarger: https://heilandelectronic.de/enlarger, Here in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWYzDca1aAs
How to make a negative for this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zyvdIxoXI

Just to shows us that we are not yet crazy enough concerning our hobby. :-)
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Old 21st June 2020, 08:00 PM
Michael Michael is offline
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Oh dear - not to mention Kienzle Automotive at kienzle.de . The only one of the three I had heard of before was the horological business.
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Old 22nd June 2020, 07:16 PM
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I'm sure it would be a pretty simple matter to replace the fan/motor with something off-the-shelf Martin. Tho' the heater may be a more awkward to source if needed.

But still, it's always nice to have an excuse to exercise the old GAS urges
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