Looking for a timer!

Elders and Betters!

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I am nearsighted, my eyes never did work well in the dark, they are on their seventh decade, and spotting the sweep second hand on my watch is hit-or-miss. In order to keep paper in the developer for the requisite two minutes I need:

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One small mechanical or battery powered timer.

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Ideally the timer would emit a gentle "ding" or buzz at the end of two minutes. I cannot use my Gralab timer, which is hard-wired into a cold-light enlarger. I want something a tad more accurate than the classical egg-timer.

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Any ideas on who could supply one of the above?

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Many thanks!

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Jeremy Keller

Jeremy,

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Any department store or kitchen/housewares store will have a selction

of digital cooking timers that will fit your needs. I am sure that

you can even find one with large numbers.

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Good luck,

I came across my almost ideal development/fixer timer at an

electronics store. It can be set so that it beeps, flashes a red led

or both. I have it on 'flash only' mode as my son sleeps in the next

room. Once the time is up and you press the 'ok' button, it resets

back to whatever time you have in it. I do everything in multiples

of that time, so pressing the button starts the timer, pressing it

again stops it and resets and if I want more iterations it's just one

more press of the button. One thing it doesn't do which another

timer I use for timing prints in the wash does, is show you how much

time it's been since the time was up, which would be nice but I don't

find to much of a hinderance. The LCD display is a bit small

(probably 10mm digits) but I never really look at it anyway, just

wait for the LED to flash which means I'm not looking at a clock

always waiting for that 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1...

I bought a second hand gra-lab 300 and mounted it over my sink. It's

perfect for my needs. Just be sure you don't get the old metal style

because the bell is too loud.

Jeremy:

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I finnaly found struck paydirt as I had been looking for just such a

device.

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I found a Radio Shack English Talking CountUp/Count Down timer, cat

No 63-877. It has an LCD and of course can be set to talk with a

synthesized female voice. It counts down and sounds teh remaining

time on teh minute, then in teh last minute, every ten seconds then

down from ten, then after teh time tells how far after.

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It cost me $24 Canadian so about 16 US and uses cheap readily

available batteries: Great.

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Cheers

I also suggest Radio Shack. That's where I got the small electronic

timer I use for developing film. I forget the model number, but at

Radio Shack they salesperson will show you a bunch of different

models. You can check out the size of the readout, and the "ding",

which is an issue for my older set of ears.

There are always a bunch of Gralab 300 timers available on Ebay.

Several have sold recently for $30 or so, although others have gone

for much higher. This is what you're familiar with, and although they

seem to just run forever, if you had a second one on the developing

side you'd have a spare in case your enlarger timer ever gave up.

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The Gralab 300 is what I use on the wet side of my darkroom - actually

two of them. One was my father's, which must be 50+ years old and has

the bell (single ring at the end of the time - fairly loud, but then

it's over) while the other one is the new model with the adjustable

volume buzzer. I have one at the middle of the wet side where the

paper developing tray usually sits, the other is at the sink where

it's easier to set and see for developing film.

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I actually prefer the bell model with its single ding, because the

buzzer model just goes on and on, and even at its lowest setting is

quite annoying if it goes on for any length of time. Sometimes I'm

doing something else when the buzzer goes off - like framing and

focusing a negative in the enlarger - and it isn't critical that I do

something at the end of the time - like take a print out of the wash.

I just want to know when the wash time is up, and a single bell is

enough. The operating advantage of the bell model is that I can leave

it "on" all the time and just click the minute hand over two minutes

at the start of a print, which starts the timer running immediately.

Then, if I want a bell to ring at the end, I just tap the bell button

on the top (which I think cocks the bell mechanically) at any point

before the time runs out. At the end of the time the bell goes off

and the timer just sits, waiting to run again. With the buzzer model

I'd have to set the minute hand then flip the timer switch to on, and

I have to turn it off at the end in order to silence the buzzer.

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On the whole, I find the bell model friendlier for paper timing. But

the bell models are quite old, and I don't see them very often on Ebay

(not that I look that hard for them, though.)

As a fan of low-tech solutions, I'm not normally one to tout high-

tech gadgets with lots of bells and whistles. However, I swear by my

Zone VI compensating developing timer. Yeah, it's a lot more

expensive than the little wind-up egg timers, but it has LEDs that

are large and bright enough to see at the other end of my darkroom

sink and beeps every 30 seconds as well. There is also a dimmer

setting for film developing, and brightness and loudness controls to

fine tune it to your needs. The best thing, however, is the little

temperature probe that goes in the developer tray and the

accompanying chip in the unit that adjusts the length of

the "seconds" depending on the temperature of the developer. No more

worries about temperature drift, cold solutions in winter or warm in

summer. This thing has relegated my thermometers to the drawer.

Repeatable results at practically any reasonable temperature was

worth the extra expense for me. Maybe you can find one on eBay for

cheap. Hope this helps. ;^D)