posted the other day about basic darkroom setups and the nova system was mentioned breifly. i’ve been having a bit of a look but can’t seem to find much more info than sales blurb, anyone on here got any experience of them such as ease of use, how long the chemicals can last in them etc and/or can give me some pointers which models to look for.

Some good info here about how long chemicals last in them

http://www.heylloyd.com/technicl/nova.htm

Models to look for – well whatever you can find at a reasonable price that
still works the heating and physical structure being important.
It will have to be the right size too.

as they can be very expensive another route might be to make your own
fish tank heater and water bath + dividers – need to be able to drain it
and it needs to be strong.

They take up permanent space unlike trays so using trays and pooring chemicals back into sealed bottles may actually be more practical unless you have space.

Ok I read your original post – forget nova deep tanks,

The Jobo paper tanks are what might work for you , although you do need to
be very systematic about what you are doing you cannot see what you are doing.
perhaps get started with trays and see how you get on its certainly more fun to
watch whats appearing.
Somewhere I have a weird thing that you put the paper in flat – close the lid and rock it about – these things were all about doing colour processing where no safe light was used.
I will confess to owning several enlargers and even a 5×4 Durst , all waiting for retirement (mine)

cheers finishthat. i have used trays, albeit 30 years ago, but when i went to university they had an automated tank system and i much preferred that as the set time made me focus on the quality of the negative and exposure as against pulling out the print when it looked ok… but as i say both were a very long time ago so i may be a little more patient these days!