8mm Forum: Looking for a new engineer, results soon.

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Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on May 29, 2004, 02:34 PM:

i had a visit today from an old mate of mine who is a buyer for the Naval dockyard here in Plymouth. I got chattin to him about my 24FPS rollers and he explained that the engineers i use are top notch but very expensive, so i rapidly gave him my last spare roller and he has taken it away to put out to tender, i@ thinking other bits, rollers, and those lens brackets some of you boy's mentioned. I will keep you updated and see what comes about, i couldnt have askedfor a better contact as his job is to search for the best engineers and deal all over the country including electronics. [Wink]

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on May 29, 2004, 05:39 PM:

Maybe the people your friend finds will also undertake small run injection mouldings? [Smile]

Guides

Kev.

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on May 30, 2004, 09:35 AM:

i will ask. [Wink]

Posted by John Whittle (Member # 22) on May 31, 2004, 10:15 AM:

Kevin,

Out of curiosity, don't you have to invest in molds for injection plastic runs? I've heard that's where the money is (at least in the hobby world they cost thousands).

Is there another way? Or could cold cast resin with a vacuum pump produce a usable part? That can be done in small runs (even one offs) with minimal equipment and proper training (they do it for special effects work).

John

Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on May 31, 2004, 12:18 PM:

John

I once got a load of small plastic items made up for a bunch of enthusiasts in my other hobby, vintage VWs'. You're right the expense is in getting the mold made up, when I did it last it cost £1500 for the mold and the first run of a hundred units [these were wheel nut covers], after that the expenses for subsequent runs was drastically reduced [ almost to pence] as the mold could be re-used almost indefinately.

If the technique hasn't changed this would suggest that if an enterprising person [Tom [Roll Eyes]

] were to go down the same route, he would need to be able to guarantee selling at least 100 guides of one type at £15 each to get his money back on the first run.

I would think that there have been advances in the injection molding world and it might be possible now to get the mold made up by some sort of computer scanning technique for less [mine was cut by hand the old fashioned way] but I don't know, even so it would require a large outlay in the first instance.

The other thing to think about is that my wheel nut covers did not need to be made to the same rigid tolerances of film guides and were of much softer more malible plastic, not being an expert I don't know whether or not this would have an impact on the cost.

It should be possible though, and I wish Tom success in his enquiries, I would certainly be in the market for a set of new guides for my GS and if the cost is reasonable I would buy at least two sets to help the project along.

Out of interest, and this could have an impact on the saleability of the final product, does any one know whether the same guides were used on different machines?

Mike

Posted by John Whittle (Member # 22) on June 01, 2004, 11:03 AM:

Mike & Kevin,

There is another possibility depending on your "contacts". Is there any possibility that Elmo would entertain the sale of the dies or loan them to permit a parts run?

I know that in the US, KMR has had some success with remanfacturing certain parts for Kodak slide projectors and did at one time purchase the entire parts inventory from EKC.

Perhaps if you guys have a unified "user group" you might be able to get some kind of deal with Elmo to allow you to make and supply some of these parts.

I know that Elmo is the US pretends that they didn't make some stuff from 20 or 30 years ago and claim no knowledge of the item even when approached with part numbers and diagrams, but hopefully things are better over there.

John

Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on June 01, 2004, 12:21 PM:

John

Your suggestion of presenting Elmo with a 'United User Group' is a good one, with Kevins data base of Elmo projectors of various models and their owners contact details it might be possible to get some 'United Support' for a remaufacturing project with the blessing of Elmo.

It needs someone to pull all the strands together and I would think that this forum has given us a better opportunity to do that than we have had before, evidence of that I think is the coming together of forum members at BFCC. We are indeed starting to feel united [Cool]

.

So, what's the next step [Roll Eyes]

Mike

Posted by John Whittle (Member # 22) on June 01, 2004, 06:07 PM:

If I might be so bold as to suggest, perhaps Kevin or someone that has talked with Elmo Techs in the UK might present the idea to them. With a list of 200 or so interested users that need parts and a list of the common requests (film guides, drive rollers, sound heads) perhaps Elmo would sanction the ordering of those items from a suitable supplier.

I doubt, but don't know, that Elmo let out the plastic parts (I know that Eiki did) to another supplier. Also electrical parts and maybe even circuit boards were obtained by contract.

I would hope that the dies are still around and could be reused. It would probably be possible to get a company to run up a small quantity of mag heads as well.

If you gents have a formal organisation, so much the better since a letter on a letterhead would probably get more consideration than a phone call. Certainly email is ignored.

John

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on June 02, 2004, 01:33 PM:

Does anyone know how to get hold of Elmo Japan other than through AVM?

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