Radiographic processing is necessary for the
production of the useful visible image.
It links exposure to interpretation and
influences quality.
This short history of processors shows development
of equipment from the time of manual processing
through automatic hanger transport systems to
modern automatic radiographic processors.
One way to illustrate theory or to bring
it home to make it easy to understand might be to
consider the development of the equipment that was
produced to support the theory in question.
In this case radiographic processing,
we know that processing specifically the
developer converts the latent image into the
visible image.
It takes the latent image,
which is a few atoms and black metallic
silver resulting from an initial
exposure.
And that this quantity of silver is not
useful.
We can't see our images hidden as such or latent
image.
And this image must be amplified
uh over a million times into a
more useful image.
A greater quantity of silver.
This is the function of the developer.
The developer undergoes an oxidation reduction
reaction.
So the function of processing is convert the
latent image into the visible image.
And we know that the function of processing
is controlled by the theory of processing
which provides a set of
conditions under which this development or process
processing or development undergoes or
does its work specifically.
We have a relationship of time and temperature
to a given chemical activity.
We have the time of development,
we have the temperature of development.
These need to be controlled for consistency,
consistent quality.
They need to be controlled to help us to generate a
given level quality unto
itself or to alter the quality.
So there's many aspects to this time
temperature and activity relationship.
But keep in mind that we can indeed
say that the one way to process
for consistent quality is the maintenance of
the time temperature activity
method of processing.
This allows us to alter the time
temperature or activity one at a time or we
could alter all three to achieve a
different level of quality.
Or we can alter one or all of these
units in an effort to
modify the processing to
uh somehow affect a quality change
and increase or decrease in density.
Or basically a speed shift sense
symmetrically.
Or we might alter the contrast level.
Now of course processing has been around since
the days of
the inception of radiography.
And yet the automatic processor has only been with us some
17,
18 years.
So that's very new.
And of course radiology as such as a science is
relatively new in the field of medicine.
So let's go back and we will consider
just how processing developed
in the light of its equipment that's used with it.
We might first begin with manual processing
situation and that's not really too different from
automatic situation.
We start off with the exposed film being
placed in chemical tanks,
developer fixer wash and then finally it's
dried the average processor will have
a wet compartment and then the dryer
in manual processing.
The dryer of course would be separated away from the wet
solutions.
But basically this is a concept.
The chemistry system of processing involves
a developer fixer and wash at least these
three steps In the first
manual processing situation.
And this is often called deep tanks,
which is erroneous because uh they could be deep tanks or
shallow tanks.
It could be one gallon to 25 gallon
processing tanks.
But these are manual processing tanks because they
require manual agitation,
manual time control.
Uh while temperature is uh to a degree
automatic,
it must also be monitored prior to the actual development
phase.
In this particular system we have two separate tanks
is outlined by the black band around each
age we start off on the left hand tank,
we have a water inlet and the water is temperature
controlled and it flows around these separate
tanks.
The tanks being stainless steel or a rubberized
material will control the temperature of the
chemicals in the tanks.
First,
we start with the developer from the
developer of the film will be removed.
And of course we have to remember two things.
One,
we have a time temperature activity relationship in the
developer so much time when the film's immersed in
the developer with agitation at a certain
temperature.
Of course developer is of a certain activity level.
Also next,
the film,
once it's removed is usually drained and here
again we see the second point to remember is the fact that
while that chemistry is being drained off from the film,
there is some development going on.
So we need to remember that that should be included in the
total development time or
take steps not told it in the air to
allow Ariel oxidation and further development in
the air,
but immediately remove it from the developer and place it into a
shortstop or directly into a first rinse or
fixer bath going back.
We see that we have a stop bath.
The stop bath could be a water bath.
It could be simply this water here we have for
temperature control.
More specifically,
a stop bath is often called a shortstop and
it's usually an acid.
Now there are two functions for the stop bath.
One is to uh first neutralize the
developer being an acid.
It very rapidly neutralizes the developer remaining on the
film and within the film,
the stop bath also prevents
the carry out of the developer into the fixer
tank because if developers carried into the fixer
tank,
certainly the fixture,
which is also an acid will neutralize developer.
But the fixer in turn would be further diluted by
this waste material.
It would be deluded and thereby less
active after a period of time.
So to protect the fixer we use the stop bath
or first rinse or as I said,
it could be called a shortstop
if we go on over to the wash tank and the
wash has a chemical function in that it removes
all of the chemicals that are remaining.
We noticed first of all that it's just a great big tank divided
in half and it says a cascade wash tank.
That simply means that we have active water flow.
And this is a classical example
that we find throughout all the photography.
The water will move in here all the way to the
left at the water inlet and the water flows
up over this dam or
weir and then eventually it will come down
and up and out at this point.
So it is flowing counter to the
passage of the film through these tanks.
This is called the counter current flow of
wash water and this counter
current flow provides for the
dirty water.
Two be present where the film enters.
Of course the film is loaded with fixer anyway,
so immediately the fixer is flushed out of the film
is removed,
is taken down the drain.
Uh Next we have the film moved into the
cleaner and cleaner water,
and finally,
after the film is fully washed,
it exits where the water is the cleanest.
So in effect it's actually rinsing off the surface of the
film.
So we have a very clean film and the minimal amount
of water spots or chemical debris
left on the film.
So this then is a counter current flow to affect the
very best washing system.
This system of counter current flow or a modification of
it Has been maintained in
all the automatic processors down through the last
17 or 18 years and there is but one
exception to this flow and it happens to use a
concurrent flow.
But the conditions that are unique to an
automatic processor that would allow a
concurrent flow or a change from this
basic idea of the counter current flow or
manifest in the fact that we have much improved
films.
Uh certainly the polyester film base
which will pick up less moisture,
retain less chemicals,
less shrinkage and adjustments to its
size and condition.
Uh Modern,
high activity chemicals and things of this
nature.
So basically what we have here in this
manual system of developer
shortstop fixer and wash has been
maintained in all of processing.
It's just been modified or refined and
mechanized.
So we might first of all begin and say,
well when did the first mechanization come in?
Actually back in the middle forties or late forties.
We have the first of the automated
manual systems and that's more
descriptive than technically accurate,
in that they took the manual processing system that you
see here and they adapted to it,
an automatic processor.
This is the PICO corporations
processor and it is a manual
System Insofar as its tanks.
It's time factors,
its temperature factors,
but the movement of the film is done automatically
and it was called the PICO Model
14 film machine.
We can see hangers.
The hangers of course are manually loaded.
The hangers are placed into a compartment and then the machinery
will pick up a hanger,
move it first into the developer tank.
Now,
once this is lowered down,
then a second conveyor system moves it on a timed
basis through the chemistry.
And then at that end of that sequence it's lifted back up
and then inserted into the shortstop and
so forth.
And down here we have the dryer chamber.
Keep in mind that this small improvement,
it's not small in that this is a very large
processor,
it's extremely large and bulky.
But the adaptation from
manual processing to an automated
manual system,
it was quite a step forward in that it provided a
better degree of consistency.
Here is a machine that provides consistent
time.
Whereas many people,
not all but many people in the good old
days as such would manually
process by site development.
They would discard a time temperature
relationship,
but they would look at the film and they would
agitate they would time until they
achieved a certain density and that certain
density was usually chosen as what they thought was wanted
by the radiologist more so than what was technically
accurate or needed.
Uh This way they didn't have to be quite so
careful with exposures.
But now we have an automated processor,
a machine that eliminates the human variable
or the human uh poor intentions
and it produces a consistent time and this is the
first step to provide consistent quality.
Next,
if we go to a greater in detail,
look at this particular machine,
we can see the inside,
this machine had its own
agitation.
It had nice large tanks and
everything pretty much lend itself to quality.
Here we see the racks being lowered down and then of course
it would be moved through the chemistry at the end,
lifted back up.
So this is uh an automated
system as such and it was still being
used in many localities until uh
The early 1960s.
It used to be true of the
layout of a manual darkroom system that you made
very certain that you placed the manual tanks because they
were messy and they were smelly and water
invariably was splashed around,
you placed these messy tanks away from at the
opposite end of the dark room from your loading benches,
your film,
bend your sorting and so forth.
With the advent of the automatic processor.
The units were much smaller and
because everything was contained within this
compartment as such and the
operator didn't handle the chemicals,
we can see that we have a more efficient dark room.
The operator doesn't need to walk back and forth across the dark
room,
stand in one place and feed in this case two
processors.
The processor as such could be installed totally within the dark
room through the wall,
partially in other words,
just to feed tray protruding into the dark room.
Or we could have just the receiver
been on the outside of the wall in the light area.
Or with modern systems we can of course have the
process er totally in the white light if we have an
automatic feeding system.
So there's quite a bit of alternatives there.
Now the basic dark room again,
we have the feed tray and the technologist places the
film on the feed tray and the film then passes into the
processor and go through an automatic sequence
of time,
temperature and activity.
The first processor of this automatic
system was not a roller transport as we know it
today,
it was a continuous roller transport system and
basically it was first released as
uh a handless system.
Now the hanger,
this system is one way of turning it.
The continuous roller system is another of course
with the continuous roller and having the film double
back on itself,
It allowed for much smaller processors followed
to the hanger system and this was quite an
advantage.
They still were very large machines,
very expensive and it took a long time to process.
But an automatic machine selling at
$37,500 that would
deliver a film dry in
approximately 15 minutes was certainly much
faster and cleaner and neater and more consistent quality
wise,
that would be the counterpart,
the manual processing system that required almost an hour.
It was very messy,
smelly,
took up a lot of space and did not have
the same degree of quality.
So the basic process that we're going to talk about the modern
X ray processor,
we have this kind of shape and
dimension.
The developer fixing,
washing the dryer is attached because the
chemicals are not being splashed around so we can
use an electrified dryer assembly in
close proximity.
In manual processing of course the dryer chamber had to be moved
away maybe two or 3 ft away from the
the the possibility of splashing and
so forth from the manual system.
There's often a problem insofar as what is the
front and back of an automatic processor.
You perhaps have your own concept up
front and back.
Many people talk about the light side versus the dark
side but yet we can have a processor totally in the
dark or totally in the light.
So one way to consider this is that every
processor has a feat.
End and receiver in every processor has a
drive side and a non drive side.
And this is one way to orientate when you're talking with a
serviceman or you're looking for parts or
assistance notice that there is
a unique feature here that we have the developer,
the film passes out of the developer directly into the fixing.
There is no short stop or first rinse.
This is not
necessary in the automatic processor for two reasons.
One we have uh squidgy
assembly which will keep the developer
from being carried into the fixer and thereby diluting.
And then we also have a hardening agent in the
developer which will help to control the amount of swelling
of the developer.
And because we control the amount of swelling,
there will be less developer trapped within the gelatin layer
and therefore let's carry it out.
And there's two uh ancillary reasons.
Also,
one of course,
is that he used films that retain far less
moisture than did the older films used in manual
processing.
And also the film is transporting so
rapidly in the modern systems
that there tends to be less time for accumulation
of this chemical.
Now moving on to the actual processor,
we find the first model m processor
introduced by the Kodak Corporation
In November of 1957.
It was very large.
If we can look inside we can see that there were
six tanks we have
to developer to fix to wash and a tremendous
long horizontal dryer.
The blower is tremendous.
It's about four ft in diameter,
is a very large machine.
These racks are very heavy and
requires a hoist to remove them.
Certainly different than what most of you would experience by looking around
your own department of radiology or office.
The next model was slimmed down.
It was refined and as you can see uh
by the modern dress of the young lady.
Uh This was a modern machine,
it was Trimmed down,
it was improved,
this was the model M2 and
the price was reduced.
Then we see another view notice the
building mixing valve,
a rather elaborate system for adjusting the temperature
replenishment and temperature
and here's the temperature control for the dryer assembly.
Down here we have two counters,
one counter notified as to the number of
films fed at the feet end,
but the other counter told you how many exits exited the
machine at the other end and sometimes they would
not be the same.
This is the M three.
Now,
to make a smaller unit,
a more versatile unit.
Kodak took the dryer assembly which remember was a
big long horizontal unit and doubled back.
Now the dryer comes down and around
and this is cleaned up.
It's neater.
The tanks are smaller as we can see
here the big large
blower assembly has been laid on its side and is now
underneath the shortened tanks.
And instead of six tanks we now have two developer
fix and a wash.
So the development time has changed.
The films have changed throughout this
period and we have a much more compact
processor.
This particular feed station had a storage box that was light
tight underneath.
That's the reason it's shaped this way.
The next evolution in the Kodak line
was a model M four A and M four B.
But this followed a unit that looks very
similar to this,
that was really a cut down,
modified M three and this
particular unit was the first of the most popular brand
of Kodak units,
The M four series.
So the first unit looks something like the M three we just
saw but it was of this size,
it had gray metal size sheet metal
and it was called the M four standard
M four A and B.
Are mechanically quite a bit different than the M four
standard M four A and B.
Are identified by wood,
green paneling that are easy to remove.
Lift out panels much neater,
more of a modern appearance to it And the price
dropped down into the teens about
$14,000.
This machine was a standard cycle of dry to
drop seven minutes,
so we've come down double the speed or
half the time if you wish to produce the
film.
The other end inside.
We noticed that now we have a staggered sequence.
We have developers still a little bit longer than is the fix and the
wash.
Okay.
Instead of two developer tanks,
we now have a long developer tank.
Less fixing time.
Let's wash your time.
The dryer assembly actually starts right here insofar
as a squeegee exit assembly up and
over and then down through the dryer assembly where we have hot air
blowing in from a direct dry blower assembly and then to the
receiver bin,
the replenishment pump and the replenishment tanks
originally replaced underneath the processor.
But notice the proximity to the heater
element and which would be right across here,
it's not shown.
And the blower which of course would get very hot with the hot air in
it.
Uh This will cause more rapid oxidation of
the developer and these tanks and most machines have been
removed.
But that was probably the most popular processor ever built by
Kodak and it has since been discontinued.
Was produced for about 10 years up until the
late 1960s.
Uh companion of the M.
Four for small clinics and doctor's office was was
a unit that was approximately half the
size of the M.
Four and that's the M.
Five.
The Kodak instamatic processor model M five.
We noticed a very small compact unit.
It was very efficient And it operated at
about eight minutes.
This unit sold for approximately
$7,000 and as
such was immediately purchased to do a
very large job instead of being used just in Doctor's
offices,
it found its place in surgical suites and things of this
nature.
So as a result it became
apparent that the market was ready for a smaller machine
would would have a high capacity and at the
same time be able to
withstand a large workload.
This unit however,
was not designed for this workload and many of them were
converted and
purchased and converted installed in large hospitals
and used that way.
But his original intention to be used in the small doctors
office and carried a small price and it was a low
capacity processor
Then uh in 1966 at
the annual convention.
The Kodak yeah,
People introduced the 92nd cycle
which also besides films and chemistry
ah required a faster processing
system.
And this was the Kodak RP matt.
This is a model M six.
The original model M6,
It operated 103 and a half degrees and produced the
film in a tremendously fast 90
seconds.
And since that time,
more and more people have converted to the more
rapid 92nd cycle.
Again,
if you you can notice the relative size,
it's approximately the same size as the M
five.
The more modern version of the M six is called an M
six a.m. Which is about six inches
higher than what you see right here,
which this is a basic M six model.
The M six a.m. Is the current version that is
being offered,
sells for approximately $8000.
And the reason that's six inches higher is to allow
for more uh hi more
and easier access to all of the various components within
the processor.
This unit was a little difficult to work on at
times.
Now in the PICO corporation,
they were developing their own processors for X
ray.
Of course PICO is well known throughout photography
uh insofar as producing processing
equipment.
So they developed this particular unit to compete with
Kodak in the X ray market,
we have a series of tanks to developer
tanks,
fixed wash in this wet section.
There is a gap in which there's a squeegee roller assembly to the
dry section and again we have a horizontal dryer
notice the replenishment flow
and needle valve assembly for adjusting replenishment building,
mixing valve and temperature gauges.
This machine,
the first model expect Rolex which is the
correct name as the correct name for the Kodak machine
would be so mad.
This is PICO Role but it's often called a PICO
X.
It's much smaller than the model Amorim two or
M3 the Kodak produced.
So this was a significant savings in space
and efficiency to a degree.
This was further made smaller and refined by the
elimination of one of the developer tanks and a pre dryer assembly in the
dryer.
And that produced the Pay Karol X.
M.
Processor.
Again a seven minute processor that
produced the film dry to drop in approximately
seven minutes.
The unit is very efficient and this became
the most popular model of the PICO line
for many years.
Introduced in the early 19 sixties.
It was produced throughout the sixties.
The next model to compete with Kodak's M five
was Pecos version of the small processor
for the small doctor's office clinic
surgery places where there was not a need for a
high volume and this is the PICO X.
F.
The basic modern designs of the
ah PICO unit Was
exemplified in the paper roll XR which had
variable speed and it was able to
run 90 seconds.
It also had a
far advanced temperature
control system,
a solid state electronic temperature control system.
And this particular one which is red was a one of a
kind that was shown at a convention.
Most of them are not quite this bright.
Uh This then led to the
scale down PICO.
Ex you we we will see you again in a moment but
next to it is a PICO X.
You take a Rolex.
You either name correctly describes it
in which we now have for the first time in the PICO
processors.
A good vertical dryer assembly
instead of the old familiar horizontal dryer in the
PICO XR.
So the XR was the last of the horizontal dryer and the
big unit internally this is approximately the same as
this.
But when they went to the PICO X.
U.
They changed roller configurations and so forth.
Here's a closer look at the PICO X.
You in which all of the controls are placed up high
so that they can be easily seen
and and adjusted if necessary or
monitored.
So pick a Rolex.
You is currently the units sold by PICO
to handle uh large and small
capacity.
This is a pro fix ray the very first one and it's called the
standard profile X ray unit
Or the a 23,000 series.
Actually the a 23,000 series is the one that most
people are familiar with and it's a unit
that is a modified it's a
cleaned up unit compared with the standard
But profits reproduced the standard unit to be
the proverbial model T in everybody's garage.
It sold originally for $5,000.
It was a 3.5 minute machine.
And the concept was that anybody could afford it and it
produced a quality radiograph.
Uh And as such because of this
kind of marketing endeavor it did spur
many people on to consider processing where they had not
done so before.
So we really started a whole new boom
of of people considering the automatic
machine in the late 1960s
the more modern Prefecture A processors
would be the low capacity units simply called Prefecture.
A low cap And the high cap or high capacity unit
that would do a tremendous 385 mixed
films per hour.
Today the profits Ray markets the independent one
tabletop processor and the Independent
too which is a high capacity floor model.
The Picker Corporation originally came out with a very
far in the future design of their
Picker diplomat.
Picker pick somatic one with the spray bar
mechanism,
very few rollers.
Then they produce the straight line model of the pixie two and
three.
And then finally just recently developed the Picker
Diplomat 1000.
This has been replaced by the Picker Diplomat 2000
model high capacity processor
that leads us to modern machines such as the G
E 400 the tabletop series,
the Mustang Destro Alphatec Corsair,
the G.
E film,
a film.
O Matic tabletop processors.
Modern processors have gotten smaller and
they they have gotten more reliable and they're being
used in many different ways.
But still they do control the
processing time,
temperature and activity relationship.
They are similar inside and
the changes the growth that we're having
now is due to their efficiency.
The fact that they do provide consistency and
that in a small nutshell is the
short history of processors.
Mhm.
Mhm.