OpenAutoLab: photographic film processing machine. Fully automatic and DIY-friendly.

Day 1 11:00 Fuse en Hardware

Dec. 27, 2025 11:00-11:40

Fahrplan__event__banner_image_alt OpenAutoLab: photographic film processing machine. Fully automatic and DIY-friendly.

OpenAutoLab, an open source machine, that is capable of processing contemporary color and black-and-white films for analogue photography, is being presented here. It made its first public appearance at 37C3 and was already seen there in action, but had no organized talk or proper presentation. Now it is better documented, waits to be built by more people and to be further developed by the community. This talk is about motivation behind developing OpenAutoLab and about the technical decisions made during it. It is argued that any dedicated film photographer is able to get one built.

The presentation starts with a short overview of analogue photography processes and motivation of some photographers to shoot film instead of using contemporary digital technology. It covers ways to process the film starting from least involved, such as sending to specialized laboratory, and possible motivation to get a processing machine. Existing film processors are described with their features and deal-breakers for an end-user in 2025. Then the history of developing OpenAutoLab is given, together with important design decisions made during development and why alternative solutions were discarded. In the end the process of building the machine (and sourcing the needed parts) is given with some motivation towards changing it to fit the needs of an individual photographer.

Talk plan:

General part

Why shoot film?
Why process film yourself?
Why OpenAutoLab had to exist (other film processors)
Non-standard chemistry and early stages of OATL
Iterations of development

Design decisions

Stirring with a stick (agitation methods)
Gear pump: alternative to lift (methods of pumping the chemicals)
Valves are not easy (methods of selecting chemicals to pump)
Cooking with magnets (temperature control)
Arduino in 2025? (DIY-friendliness of electronics and improving it)
Plumbing (DIY-friendliness of 3d-printed parts)
Elefant in the room (It's about water filter)
Shortly about sourcing parts and assemblying

Questions

Vortragende Personen dieser Veranstaltung

Kauz

I live in Hamburg and work there as a software developer. It took me long (both in terms of time elapsed and number of hops) to get there (geographically as well as occupationally), so I won't bother you with details. Important is, that during those years, photography oscillated between being part of my job and one of my hobbies, and so did tinkering with microcontrollers and automation. The projects I'm into are often about bringing contemporary hardware and 3d-printed parts to something considered obsolete.