The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 22, 1998
Filed:
Jun. 07, 1996
Gerhard Benker, Icking, DE;
Wilfried Hehn, Munchen, DE;
Agfa-Gevaert AG-Phototechnik, Leverkusen, DE;
Abstract
A system for processing photographic material has a series of processing vessels containing different water-based processing baths. A reference vessel is mounted on one of the processing vessels and serves to compensate for the evaporation of water from the processing vessels. To this end, the reference vessel accommodates a body of water as well as a float switch having an upper contact and a lower contact. The reference vessel and processing vessels are open at the top and a feeding arrangement is provided to admit water into the respective vessels through their open tops. The feeding arrangement includes one or more pumps connected to a control unit which is further connected to the float switch. When evaporation causes the water in the reference vessel to fall to the level of the lower contact of the float switch, the control unit activates the pump or pumps to replace the water lost from each of the vessels by evaporation.