The Very First Model

As a dentist I had a very difficult time with the film processors that were available at the time. (1991) They were made of multiple rollers, like a small version of grandma's clothes rollers, which rolled film into developer and fixer vats, a water vat, then a dryer. The rollers would get gummed-up, jam, and scratch the film. We were constantly losing film and doing re-takes. The roller processors had to be cleaned thoroughly every week; about a 45 minute job for the unlucky assistant who got to stay after work to do it. I frequently looked at our roller processor, and I knew that I could come up with a better idea. I just knew. I started spinning some ideas around. I seriously wanted to give it a try. A very good friend of mine had invented and patented DefendDoor, a car trim that you could extend when in a parking lot so nearby cars couldn't scratch your doors. His invention became a stimulus for me to try to design a better film processor, a device that had created so many headaches for me in my dental practice. I got the idea of placing the film in one tank, and allowing the chemicals to flow into the tank, then return to their storage tanks. Wash water would flow into the reaction tank from a fresh-water valve, then be washed down the drain. The idea actually came from the design of a toilet. I visualized two tanks and the one bowl where the film would be placed. I won't mention what I was doing when I got the flash. Since the chemicals would be in tanks above the reaction tank, getting the liquid into the reaction tank would be a snap utilizing a simple ball valve and gravitational flow. Getting it back might be more difficult. I first tested pumps, but that idea vanished quickly. Too slow, plus the bearings wouldn't fare well in the corrosive environment. One day I was vacuuming my garage. I wondered what a vacuum might do to bring the chemicals back into the storage tanks. I put a lid on the waste baskets that I was using at the time (above), and the chemicals "flew" back. The connecting tube itself was dry. I closed the valve between the two and trapped the liquid in the storage tanks. I was off and running.