News

Drying your film should be the simple part!  But it's not. We've been experimenting with different approaches to getting our film dry and, more importantly, keeping it dust free, for some time.  Here's a rendering of our latest design: The base unit contains the controller, fan, heater and electrostatic air filter.The "tower" holds up to six sheets of 4x5 film.  The operation is pretty simple: the fan draws air through the electrostatic filter and heating element; then pushes it into the tower. Here's an top view with the lid removed: Just slide your film into the slots, select the time,...

We've had numerous requests lately regarding processing X-ray film in our SP-8x10 Tray system. The appeal is obvious, it's only $0.75/sheet for 8x10.  However, it has light sensitive emulsion on both sides and this raises two concerns: Scratching the emulsion on the bottom side. Getting enough chemistry under the film for proper development.  In theory, it should work. All sheet film has gelatin on both sides of the film and we don't see any scratches with it. Film floats just above the bottom of the tray and should get enough chemistry to process the much lighter image on the back...

One of the last technical issues we faced with the RuxPod was how to attach the tripod to the backpack while wearing the backpack. Sounds simple enough; after all, every camera backpack has the same issue. However, we wanted easy access to the tripod without taking off the pack. Now things got complicated. Frankly, we thought we had it figured out until we started real world testing. Our attachment scheme just didn't work as well as we wanted. Our solution: build the tripod into the frame.   Rendering of the new design. Shoulder belts and waist belt not shown for...

If you’re waiting for your SP-8x20 tray system, we’ve got good news: our 3D part supplier is back in production! Note: we’ve been using the same third-party manufacturer for all our 3D production parts for over ten years, (even before we invented the SP-445!), and never had any issues. Interesting fact, the first printer they used, a Dimension 1200, cost over $35,000 back in 2008! And had to be highly modified (by them) to print ABS (we ONLY use ABS for production parts.) Unfortunately, they had a pipe leak and the water damaged their lab/production room; completely soaking their 3D...

The complications of scaling up the SP-8x10.