Any users of Phototherm Side Kick processor?

I am interested in convenient E-6 processing of 120 films.

Dan

 

I used one at one of the labs I worked at, not a bad little machine all in
all, they have two different size tube systems for film processing, one size
accommodates Paterson and all its clones, the other uses Jobo reels.
Different inside diameters, different center tube diameters, etc. I was
intrigued by the Jobo tube idea since Hewes was making a 35mm reel with a
Jobo center core so you could use stainless steel reels with Jobo (and
Phototherm tanks).

The other neat thing about their system was a displacement donut (forget
their name for it) that would allow you to use less chemicals if you had
fewer than a full run to process.

You also told the machine how many rolls you were using and the machine
would meter out the required volume of chemistry. It would then heat the
soup and pump it into the tank when it was us to temp. You could also set
time in developer for push and pull E-6 and customize times for B&W. Since
there was no water jacket you could switch back and forth from E-6 to B&W
without cool-down or warm-up time.

Very neat system--I should say very neat when it was working--we had issues
with ours. Most of which I think were caused by the idiot that set the
machine up (my ex-boss). He didn't even have GFCI's in the darkroom the day
I started. I got a shock that day (the Phototherm drain line was blocked by
crap he had piled in the darkroom) and told him to fix the wiring before he
killed someone and gave him one day to do something about it.