8mm Forum: Elmo repairs

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Topic: Elmo repairs

Michael Hyde
Film Handler

Posts: 45
From: Dudley, West Midlands. UK
Registered: Dec 2006

posted August 31, 2015 10:31 AM

St 1200 M/O giving up the ghost after many years good service, running very very slow ,stored twelve months without use.Anyone give me a good repairer and address please, maybe bill parsons? and a rough idea as to cost of services nowadays, any help appreciated, west mids uk thanks

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Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted August 31, 2015 10:49 AM

Hi Michael,

Before you send this off let's see if we (welllll..."YOU") can fix it.

If this was mine I'd guess the roller is slipping on the shutter wheel.

It really has to be something like this since the ST-1200 motor speed is fixed and you can't slow it down without having smoke pour out!

The roller's grip on the shutter can become pretty precarious, especially since years ago the rubber surface on the wheel turned to goo on basically all of these and had to be removed. (I succeeded in putting mine back, but let's not go there yet.)

I think your machine's lubrication could be dried out after the time in storage and this could be a contributing factor. I wrote a post on lubing Elmo STs a few months ago:

The Great Worm Glop Weekend!

-but step one is still to see if you have slippage.

You may be able to see this through the top air vents in the black cover (next to the handle), but if you have to remove this cover please be careful: you are now operating with exposed line voltages!

You may also be able to make something happen just by grabbing the speed select lever and moving it around, it may not be seated properly. (Wouldn't be the first time...)

By the way: I've forgotten to ask a critical question here: When you say "slow", how slow is "slow"?. Can you see flicker on the screen or is it just that the actresses sound like they are on testosterone and the music is kind of somber?

A slight slowness is almost natural to the ST-1200 these days, but this is a different problem than the thing dragging along down under 10 FPS.

-also, I have to ask: Is the speed selector on 24 (up) or 18 (down)? (Too may "repairs" have gone way too far before somebody checked to see if the thing was plugged in!)

[ August 31, 2015, 12:10 PM: Message edited by: Steve Klare ]

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...

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Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted September 01, 2015 11:38 AM

OK Mike,

Lt's stay here: life is complicated enough!

Based on your glacial frame rate and lack of torque, I'm thinking roller/shutter wheel slippage big time!

If it was much worse I'd be calling for a broken motor belt, but it still seems to have a pulse.

Does the motor sound like it's trying as hard as in should? Your motor should be spinning at 3,000 RPM.

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...

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Michael Hyde
Film Handler

Posts: 45
From: Dudley, West Midlands. UK
Registered: Dec 2006

posted September 02, 2015 02:03 PM

Hi Paul, I seem to be confusing many thru being computer illiterate, very sorry, but yes I would be gratefull of any help /advise you can shed on this problem at your convienience ,thanks.

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Paul Browning
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1006
From: West Midlands United Kingdom
Registered: Aug 2011

posted September 03, 2015 02:11 PM

Hello Michael, I am close to you ( in oldbury) so pm your address and i'll come over at your convenience, possibly over the weekend and i'll take a quick look to see if we can't sort it out or find out what's gone wrong. I feel sure though it has already been mentioned in some of the answers, as the guy's on here have had the same problem with that machine.

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Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted September 03, 2015 02:37 PM

That's the joy of this discussion forum:

30 years ago if a projector malfunctioned somewhere the owner was pretty much out to sea unless they went to a repair shop.

These days you say you have a problem here, and odds are good somebody else has the same machine and already fixed the same problem!

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...

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Andrew Woodcock
Film God

Posts: 7477
From: Manchester Uk
Registered: Aug 2012

posted September 03, 2015 04:48 PM

I am more than confident Paul will sort you out with this one Michael. It's a bread and butter fault for someone like Paul.

No pressure then mate ha ha! [Big Grin]

Paul makes an extremely valid point here... how often can our back catalogue sort out these type of routine problems??

Most common problems by now have been covered many many times over apart from expert electronic diagnosis on most other machines besides Elmo. Any others do remain sketchy on many models and examples of faults

By simply placing a few varied searches into the search space bar here first,very often the answer already awaits you from someone's previous contribution on here.

With now almost 4600 members on here, hopefully a bunch of electronics gurus can hopefully post a little more to begin to support the hobby that little bit more where electronic faults are concerned.

[ September 03, 2015, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: Andrew Woodcock ]

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"C'mon Baggy..Get with the beat"

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Kevin Hassall
Master Film Handler

Posts: 438
From: Walsall, England
Registered: Dec 2010

posted September 05, 2015 05:30 AM

kevin brown over nottingham does a great job on repaires he did my gs1200 i meant

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Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted September 05, 2015 06:39 AM

The problem with dealing the electronics on these machines is wiring diagrams, schematics and parts lists are pretty rare, so you can't really know what's happening once you get down to the board level. It means nobody can be an expert.

At work I deal with much more complicated circuits than these and have since I was barely out of high school, but when one of my boards dies the best I can do is replace it with another one.

-very frustrating: because with the right information I'd stand a decent chance of fixing the original board.

I wonder how much of this literature is with repair people like Bill Parsons and Leon Norris. They have stashes of parts too, but this is just as important.

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...

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Andrew Woodcock
Film God

Posts: 7477
From: Manchester Uk
Registered: Aug 2012

posted September 05, 2015 03:17 PM

I agree we could all do with more test points etc for these machines to at least give us a fighting chance.

Only the Elmo service manuals seem to provide decent schematics and other electrical drawings that really come up to scratch with decent test points etc.

I'd like to hope though, that most boards could be salvaged with enough perseverance Steve.

Bill has everything you could ever need to fix Elmo machines but I am not certain he has all other literature for most other machines.

I am sure he has quite a few but many he may not have.
I sent him my service manual for what it was worth when one of my projectors went over to him for repair.

I spoke to Kevin Brown not too far back and he was telling me where electronics are concerned, he tells his customers now to be happy if they are working at all and not necessarily all features on any machine can be economically repaired.

All the more reason to try and work out as much as you can yourself really as, as an owner, we often don't put a price against our time working on projectors.

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"C'mon Baggy..Get with the beat"

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Steve Klare
Film Guy

Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted September 05, 2015 03:34 PM

Perseverance is all well and fine, but I can't really troubleshoot without a schematic.

The parts lists are another thing. If you troubleshoot down to a dead component, even if you find out the part has been obsolete twenty years you can often come up with a substitute if you have a part number and can find a data sheet.

It's a shame. I bet there are a bunch of dead boards out there that need maybe one small, cheap part replaced: five minutes work at most.

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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...

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Andrew Woodcock
Film God

Posts: 7477
From: Manchester Uk
Registered: Aug 2012

posted September 05, 2015 03:51 PM

Very true Steve. The schematics I have are so small to be able to read properly. They all need scanning and putting on larger paper to even have a chance of seeing them clearly.
The Bauer ones are appalling. Most of the components are not tagged properly and no parts list included in with the service manual.

The Elmo ones are the clearest i've seen.

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"C'mon Baggy..Get with the beat"

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