DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A RADIOGRAPHIC FILM DRYER

Abstract

This project presents the design and construction of a radiographic film dryer to address the long drying time of radiographs. The dryer is composed of a heater, a blower, an extractor and a drying cabin that is capable of containing 25 detachable film hangers that are 49.5cm in sizes. Drying starts as the microcontroller initializes the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) connections, port directions, the Analogue-to-Digital conversion (ADC), reads the cabin temperature and humidity, and then the device prompts the user to enter the target temperature. The heater and blower (fan) are activated immediately, thereafter the microcontroller checks to see if the current temperature is greater than the initial cabin temperature and also continuously checks the humidity within the cabin to prevent over drying. When chamber heating/air evacuation was done at 5 minutes time interval and 25 radiographs of two major sizes; 18cm × 24cm (smallest) and 35cm × 43cm (largest) were dried approximately 5 and 10 minutes respectively at maximum temperature of 55 o C. The dryer is contaminant free and utilized low utility electric power. The drying process which was both temperature and humidity controlled shortened drying time and enhanced radiograph quality at the low cost.