8mm Forum: Arrrgggghhhhh!!!!!! Elmo ST1200

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Posted by Mark L Barton (Member # 1512) on September 07, 2013, 06:27 AM:

Bought a none working Elmo ST1200 from Ebay with £25 postage !!!! The projector arrived in a card box and I knew instantly something was wrong, one corner of the box was crushed. Opening the box there sat the elmo st1200 in its rigid case, the lower part of the case was split, gulp. Opening and extracting the projector revealed the inetrnal plastic parts of the case were cracked, oh no. Then I checked the projector, the hanlde had lost its corner., not that fussed , but rge back casing had suffered a whack!, it was at an angle from the main body and the rear recording panel was almost folded in half. Yes the projector had been handled by the courier like a sack of rubbish , obviously it had been dropped from a height. But, it was also the grave fault of the seller, thinking that the projectors case and a card box was sufficient protection..NOT!!! Anyway I plugged the projector in, high pitched whining sound, dial into fwd projection and nothing. Oh well lets have a fiddle, within 10 mins the projector was working, the motor whine was from a clump of dirt restricting the shaft from rotating smoothly (dont ask) and the take up arm rotation was due to a bent cog shaft (straightened and now turns fine) Even tho she looks battered in the backside the ol' girl still runs, tho the lamp is not working but I've not checked that yet, may just be blwon due to being dropped. Now you would never get todays electronic blu ray players to survive that abuse and still work. I'll post this in the sales section as well

Posted by Christian Bjorgen (Member # 1780) on September 07, 2013, 06:39 AM:

I have my two viewers + my Bolex 18-5 sitting on the top of my film shelf, and one time the cat got up on the shelf and tipped the 18-5 down. It fell about 2 metres straight down and hit the floor. Not a scratch, not a bump, no indication whatsoever that anything had happened to it. And it ran like clockwork (and still does).

It did however dent the floor and scare the hell out of the poor cat.

Posted by Mark L Barton (Member # 1512) on September 07, 2013, 06:52 AM:

Lucky it didn't dent the cat and scare the floor.

Cine kit doesn't get old they just get new owners.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on September 07, 2013, 06:53 AM:

I would have returned it to the seller, because it was insufficiently packed, and he could take it up with the courier. Don't think anyone would want to buy it. You must have wanted it, and now!

Posted by Mark L Barton (Member # 1512) on September 07, 2013, 08:08 AM:

Of course i wanted it, its an Elmo, an ST1200, and its a projector. In one of my posts I posited the thought that we are not hobbyists, or collectors but archivists in the practice of preserving celluloid and its associated empherea. Should I sell the projector on, as genuinely described, then l am 100% certain a fellow archivist will buy it, not for my profit but for the continued preservation of this tangible and tactile 'hobby'.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on September 07, 2013, 09:00 AM:

Mark, your story gave the impression that you bought a non working Elmo, possibly to repair. The extensive damage was unexpected, and it seems that because of this you want to sell it on. If I wanted a projector, which I don't, I would rather pay double the price and get one in good condition and order from Paul Foster or CHC.

Posted by Pasquale DAlessio (Member # 2052) on September 07, 2013, 09:42 AM:

Mark

Would I have to take out a loan to pay shipping to USA? I love to fix old damaged projectors. It gives them a new life!

PatD [Wink]

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on September 07, 2013, 10:43 AM:

I agree with Robert. I too would have sent it back for a full refund.

Graham S

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on September 07, 2013, 12:25 PM:

I'd put money on the courier being Parcelforce.

Posted by Allan Broadfield (Member # 2298) on September 07, 2013, 01:14 PM:

Or Interlink Direct! I had my Bell & Howell TQ111 repaired by a chap in Nottingham. He did a great job, but he had to re-do it after the aforementioned delivery firm managed to smash it up on the way back.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on September 07, 2013, 01:47 PM:

A lot of people have no appreciation (or just don't want to be bothered) of what is required to ship an item safely. If you are shipping a heavy item, like a projector, it needs specific packaging methodology for it to arrive safely. When I ship a projector I always double box it. The projector itself should first be wrapped in a plastic bag to protect the innards from any packaging material. Then it should be placed in a box with bubble wrap compressed tightly around the projector. The lens should be removed and packaged separately in its own little box. Control knob areas and spool spindles should be protected with cardboard covers and sleeves. When finished, the projector should have no movement in any direction within this inner box. Now the inner box should be sealed, and placed within an outer box which is at least 3 to 6 inches larger in all dimensions. The space between the inner and outer box should be filled with a 2 inch layer of styrofoam and a thick layer of bubble wrap.
Overkill? Definately not. A projector dropped from a height of as little as 3 ft onto a concrete floor will almost certainly sustain severe damage. The large thickness of the packing material is required to provide enough motion of the projector to reduce the impact G-level to a safe level.
A few years ago I bought my beloved Eumig 938 from an Ebay seller in Canada. It arrived at my house packed just in the original Eumig cardboard box- and nothing else! [Eek!]

No packing material of any kind, just the projector inside sitting loosely inside a cardboard box! [Eek!]

Miraculously it was not damaged, but how it survived being thrown on airline conveyor belts, and onto the backs of trucks etc, I will never know!

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on September 07, 2013, 02:10 PM:

When my projectors need repair or servicing I take them by car, a 270 mile round trip, they travel in one piece!

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on September 07, 2013, 02:13 PM:

quote:
When I ship a projector I always double box it.

Absolutely.
I received a projector a few years ago from a member of this forum who sells a lot of projectors on ebay. It was loosely boxed in ONE cardboard box. The only padding was some old newspaper.

Posted by Allan Broadfield (Member # 2298) on September 07, 2013, 02:13 PM:

Mine had the works. Double boxed, bubble wrapped, screwed up newspaper, the lot, and they still managed to screw it up. This was just after a secretly filmed documentary on TV showed the total disregard that some delivery firms have for people's property. Sometimes it appears that those big labels saying 'Fragile contents, please handle with care', 'This way up' etc., is like a red rag to a bull.

Posted by Robert Crewdson (Member # 3790) on September 07, 2013, 03:40 PM:

The postage seemed quite high, although I don't know how this model compares with other projectors. The usual price seems to be about £15. The problem with Ebay is that if you have to return something because it was not as described, you lose postage both ways.

Parcel Force is just about the worst company you could use. I use a company like Parcel2go. Never had a problem, and both sender and buyer can track the item. Fed up with Royal Mail: I sent a parcel (not Cine), and used Recorded Delivery; it has gone walkabout, so next week I need to put in a claim. 2nd time a Recorded has got lost (I prefer to say stolen) in the space of 12 months.

I don't blame Maurice for taking his projector by car, it may be an inconvenience, but at least his precious object will remain in one piece.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on September 07, 2013, 08:21 PM:

I once brought back a ST180 projector in nothing more than its box, all the way from the UK to here in NZ. The only hickup was Glasgow airport security, whom one chap was very interested in buying it [Big Grin]

Although it was on the same aircraft as me through all the transfers, it was travelling as "cargo", not hand luggage.

At Heathrow my biggest surprise was "waiting and waiting" for it to come on the carousel...everyone had picked up there stuff and had left, but no projector [Frown]

....da da at last it came down the shute, in a basket. I was thinking, did that chap at the security keep it....but no...and thanks to those baggage handlers at Heathrow for taking the time, still got that projector [Smile]

Graham.

Posted by Mark L Barton (Member # 1512) on September 08, 2013, 03:58 AM:

I bought the projector to mechanically repair, not repair structurally hence the rational for moving it on. If some one wants to carry out further restoration then brilliant, but not for me. I run GS1200's, but if I had a stable of ST1200's I would keep it more likely for spares but not in this case.
Pat, I think shipping to the US would be exceptionally expensive.
Many thanks

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