Agfa Gevaert Nv

Other

Marc J Scheerders

Benedictus J Jansen

Jan Claes

Marc A De Niel

Dirk F De Ruijter

Herman M Engels

Bartolomeus J Verlinden

Emiel Michiels

Bartholomeus Verlinden

The area of moving rectangular sheet material, such as exposed photographic material needing photographic development, is calculated by advancing the sheet material at a known speed along a straight path with one axis, e.g. the length, of the material aligned with the path pass dual sensors. The first sensor determines the length of the sheet material, e.g. by measuring the time interval for the leading and trailing edges of the material to pass the sensor, from which in conjunction with the known speed of advance, the length can be calculated. The second sensor is elongated and extends angularly across the path of advance at a fixed bias angle .alpha. and measures the time interval for the leading and trailing corners (relative to the angular orientation of the second sensor) to pass the second sensor, from which the distance separating such corners along the path can be calculated. From the difference between the latter distance and the length and the bias angle, the width of the sheet material can be calculated by a basic trigonometric function and the area is the multiple of the length and width. Preferably, the second sensor is sufficiently long to accommodate different sizes of sheet material.

Method and apparatus for calculating the area of moving sheet material

Apparatus for processing rectangular sheets of photographic material in varying format sizes is equipped to calculate at least approximately the surface area of the sheets fed therethrough. For this purpose, the apparatus includes a sensor for determining a dimension, e.g. the length, of each sheet, a memory for storing the length and width dimensions of a plurality of sheet format sizes, and a control unit which compares the determined dimension of a sheet with the dimensions stored in the memory and upon finding a match therebetween gives an output signal indication of the surface area of the sheet. If more than one match is found, the unit gives an output signal corresponding to the largest format size having a dimension equal to the determined dimension. If no match is found by the control unit, the unit is adapted to give an output signal equal to the multiple of the determined dimension and the largest of the stored width dimensions or, alternatively, an output signal corresponding to a format size having a length greater than the determined dimension. The surface area indications can be used to regulate the replenishment of processing liquid consumed during processing.

Photographic development apparatus

Silver is recovered from the rinse water from a photographic film processing unit by means of a silver recovery device in which the rinse water is passed through at least one bed of ion exchange resin particles maintained in fluidized condition by the water flow. A plurality of such beds are preferably connected in series with rinse water being recirculated until fresh rinse water causes overflow to the next bed and finally to a collection vessel. Fluidization is interrupted periodically to create quiescent periods which aid in removal from the resin particles of accumulated gelatin from the processed film.

Silver recovery device

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Melsele, Belgium

Marc J Scheerders