I needed more sophisticated tanks. I graduated to acrylic sheets. I could cut acrylic with my table saw, and it was easily welded (glued) together. I could make tanks with my choice of design and size. This is one of the many early models that I put together and tested. Early on I used timer delay relays and sprinkler timers to run the cycles. At first I didn't know much about wiring. I met a very nerdy looking lad who worked at R-Vac electronics store. He was so typical; pimply face, shirt buttoned all the way up, and all. He had incredibly thick glasses, and had to work with small parts right next to the lenses so he could see. He made a few preliminary "colored pencil" drawings for me, and I was in awe. I thought, incorrectly, that he really knew what he was doing. He only wanted $6 per hour, which is what R-Vac was paying him. I was so impressed with his drawings, I insisted that I pay him $10. I gave him a prototype that I had made with wood "shelves" and simple acrylic tanks so he could take it home for wiring. After waiting patiently for weeks, I went over to his house to see what was happening. When I got there, he was working on it in his back yard. The model was hooked up to 120V, and he was actually wiring it barefoot, with a garden hose running to fill the tanks, and flooding his patio. HE COULD HAVE DIED! I told him YOU COULD DIE! He said not to worry; he did that all the time. The developer looked like someone dumped a bowl of spaghetti over it. The wires were a mess. I gave him a hundred bucks, thanked him, and took the model home. I was going to learn how to wire myself. This would be a necessity if I were to continue improving the design. It would be too costly and time-inefficient to continue having to take it to outside "engineers" every time I needed a change in the wiring. I took it to my lab/garage and sat it on a table. I just stared at it, with that pile of "spagetti" poured all over it. I took a deep breath, wondering if I could really do this. I ripped out all of the old wiring. That night I attempted to re-wire the unit on the coffee table when my wife and daughter were watching their favorite TV serial. It took a couple of hours. I made some giant mistakes somewhere. When I plugged it in, there was a BOOM, smoke, and "lights out". The whole house was dark, including the TV. They were furious because I caused them to miss part of their show. After some study and practice, I became an expert wirer, and didn't smoke it again. I was able to eliminate the sprinkler timer, which looked pretty amateurish, by graduating to a programmable timer. I took these models to the dental conventions to try to interest companies in my idea. I used clear tanks with red colored water for the developer, and blue water for the fix. Kodak sent over two engineers to check out my design. Just as they walked up, the electronics glitched, both storage tank valves opened on their own volition at the same time, the reaction tank overflowed, and I had purple (red plus blue) water flooding all over the place. The "crowd" that had gathered to see my invention leaped back so as not to get their clothes dyed. My wife was trying to collect as much as she could in a bucket that held all of my power tools. Ugh. My face was red, and my drill was wrecked. The Kodak engineers left, each with a knowing smirk. When I got home, I worked to improve the electronics, fix the glitch, and I tried to get the egg of of my face. Programmable timers weren't easy. I moved onward.
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