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Author
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Topic: My new Specto
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Dino Everette
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1535
From: Long Beach, CA USA
Registered: Dec 2008
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posted January 24, 2009 01:58 AM
I don't really know anyone on the forum here but I am so excited today i needed to share/vent. About 6 months ago I purchased a specto 500 on ebay france. It was advertised as an 8mm, but I looked at the fotos and noticed it looked like a 9.5. so acting on a hunch I bid. I should say that I already have one but i have been having endless "ghosting" issues with it, so I have been looking for another one to save the "ghosting" one for a backup.
I won the auction for the opening bid of 9 euros and was super excited until the seller told me it would cost 175 euros to ship. I tried to bargain with him to no avail until I noticed that the listing stated shipping within france was 10 euros. I had it shipped to a friend in france and then had him ship it to me for a much better cost of around 50 euros. The total being around 70 euros.
After a quick examination, and some serious cleaning of what looked like years of dust I did a quick tune up and lube and went to turn it on. I plugged it in to my trusty voltage converter that I use on my other Specto and.. BOOM! FIRE!. It blew the fuse on the converter and shot a spring out that burned a small hole in my desktop....."What the F...?" I looked it over again and then thought I'd try it without the converter, and .....voila! It runs on 110....How great! I never even knew they made them in 110.
I ran a quick film and it has a rock steady picture. This weekend I am going to convert it over to a halogen lamp like my other Specto, and then I'll have Specto will travel (since I won't need the heavy converter)...
A couple of other differences I noticed were, being a straight 9.5 model it does not have the extra pressure plate. Also it has all spring belts so essentially none of them should need replacing. The last thing that is different and what should have been my tip off, was there was no tapping plate to adjust the voltage, when I saw this I just assumed it would be 220 or 240.
I have a bunch of 9.5 projectors, but love how kind the Specto is to my old films, and because my other one was a dual model, i modified a split reel so I can keep all of my films on cores, now i finally have the final piece of the puzzle with this new 110 volt Specto.
PS - The case even had the original receipt from 1953.
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"You're too Far Out Miss Lawrence"
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Dino Everette
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1535
From: Long Beach, CA USA
Registered: Dec 2008
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posted January 24, 2009 09:10 PM
Paul, yep they are little work horses...I guess i should start with the evidence of my damage. This is from where the resistance popped and burned into the tabletop.
and Here is the projector with the bits and bobs that came with it. There were 2 lenses, and even a little original replacement Specto drive belt.
Inside here is the modification I do to switch over to halogen. The lamp voltage is already 110 so I just added a socket for a 110v 300w halogen - These are the best lamps, they are just like the ones I use in my Elmo 16mm, only instead of needing the stepdown to 24v, I just keep it as is. I have a few other broken 8mm Specto's I use for parts so I cut the lamp house on one of those so that it is simply a straight panel in front of the lamp. The only mod on the outside is one small drill hole through the housing to mount the lamp socket to the side. With the rest of the inside lamp housing gone, the air flow from the motor fan is increased. From the outside you cannot even tell anything has been changed.
I ran a little test against the wall (which is beige and textured) and this is what it looked like. It was during the day and with the kitchen light off to the left still on, so you can see how nice and bright it is.
You can see the wall texture pretty clear, but the image is nice and bright and on a proper screen (I was too lazy to break it out for just the testing) it will look great just like my other one, only now without the ghosting and the heavy voltage converter.....I LOVE 9.5mm ! ! ! ! ! ! !! !! ! I have done regular public 9.5mm screenings here in Los Angeles for the past couple of years with my 240v Specto, but hated the ghosting and the heavy converter...I always run a few 9.5mm shorts and then a 16mm feature and it fills the 8-10 foot screen the same size as the 16mm and looks just as good. This new one will make it so much easier..
Now if I could only figure out a relooping mechanism for the specto, my life would be complete.
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"You're too Far Out Miss Lawrence"
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