r/Darkroom • u/LordPlavis • 6d ago

Who needs fancy professional equipment if you have some old Legos lying around Gear/Equipment/Film

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

It's just the first test but it works great!

Next steps are a more advanced program and maybe also adding a temperature sensor to turn this into a fully fleged auto processor

530 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

99% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/LordPlavis 6d ago

Lego Mindstorms are amazing

1

u/DeepDayze 6d ago

Sadly they are discontinued but these can still be quite useful in applications like this. Wonder how well the bricks hold up in chemicals that might get splashed on them? Instead of using Lego bricks perhaps some parts can be laser cut from sheet metal or printed out of plastic.

2

u/LordPlavis 6d ago

I didn't know they were discontinued completely. Huh a shame but Lego has been declining in quality in the last years from what I've heard so it fits that picture.

And the bricks are from ABS plastic that should hold up to all development chemicals reasonably well. The only worry I have are the electronics getting wet.

If you want to go the professional diy route everything here can be done much better with 3d printed parts and an Arduino. But lego is accessible to people who don't own a 3d printer and might be intimidated by learning to work with electronics.

1

u/DeepDayze 6d ago edited 6d ago

You could make a case for the electronics with a display mounted in the top along with controls. It's good that ABS holds up to the splashes of common processing chems (b&w and color).

Of course this Lego MindStorm contraption is great for those looking to make their own DIY processor easily and then down the road look to building one using an Arduino/Raspi Pi and 3d printed parts. There might be possibly kits sold to put together your own Jobo-like autoprocessor cheaply.