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Author
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Topic: ELMO should SUE!
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted September 29, 2017 09:21 PM
So, it was Friday (-still is!), I figured I'd celebrate by watching some films...
First up was my prized Derann "Nutcracker Suite" on my Bolex SP-80 Special (Eumig 800 series working under cover). The volume kept rising and falling: every time it reached a certain level it became normal, under that level it was muffled.
First I tried denial:
"I'm going DEAF! Yes, that must be it!" (I can always get hearing aids, but an amplifier board for a 40 year old projector...?)
You see, this is not the best machine I have, but it just happens to be the first. In my world of Super-8 Sound, this is the Wright Flyer! It got me started back in 2002 and I don't want to lose it! What's worse is this one has been spectacularly reliable. I'm not too familiar with its innards and I have no idea where to get parts for it.
So I went to my bag of tricks:
1) Divide and Conquer
I disconnected the machine from the sound system and turned up the internal speaker. The dropout stayed with the machine. (Oh Crap!)
2) Go with what you know:
It's like being betrayed by your best friend: you just don't know what to believe in anymore, so you run home to what you know.
"Something must be oxidized"
So I wiggled the plug on the soundhead. (No!)
All that was left was The ELMO Trick
-but could The ELMO Trick work on a Eumig? (Doesn't Elmo have some sort of patent on it?)
(I suppose if you drove a stake through Frankenstein's Monster's heart, it actually would kill him, but that is just so Dracula!)
Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I gave it a try.
The ELMO Trick involves the fact that unless you use gold plating on a switch contact it will eventually build up an oxide and not pass a wimpy signal like unamplified audio. When you work these switches and jacks you can break the oxides and restore everything to normal. I've used in on my Elmos many times. I startled a fellow collector by using it on theirs once. (It was like magic!) I used it at work on a $15,000 power supply and impressed my boss! (You have to love this hobby sometimes!)
-so I tried it out, just to see...
The record level knob, which has been my faithful friend these fifteen years, gave up and let the sound return to normal after a couple of clicks. (Tchaikovsky is doing just fine!)
So I guess The ELMO Trick no longer belongs exclusively to the STs and GSs. The good news is Vienna still has a pretty firm hold on Eumig Hum! If I hear that from an ELMO I'll have heard it all!
(I hate fixing things, but love having fixed them!)
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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
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posted September 30, 2017 10:01 AM
I think the quality connectors and conductors etc, always did improve any conductivity level and purity of signal, but to what extent the super duper 99.9999999% pure conductor and oxygen free copper cables etc actually improve the image and sound quality on any quality interconnect, is highly debatable.
For the purist in the specialist hi fi and digital cinema world, they will tell you nothing else will do, in reality I've found a decent HDMI cable of 10m or 15m length costing no more than say £100, is more than sufficient for all but the most demanding applications.
Naturally, if you buy very cheap interconnects, just as with anything else in life, you get nothing more than you pay for and therefore expect to witness a compromise.
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"C'mon Baggy..Get with the beat"
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Mathew James
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 740
From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2014
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posted October 01, 2017 08:29 AM
"Well, I suppose it would be a frivolous lawsuit, but based on the (false) idea that this only applies to ELMO projectors they should have some rights to it! (This was attempted Comedy...I'll be here 'til Thursday! Don't forget to tip your waitresses!)"
![[Smile]](smile.gif) I am a little slow on the draw i suppose I get what you meant now.
Yes, it appears this will work on any machine with issues similar.
This isn't really an elmo trick however...this is a Steve trick because you tried this, accidentally, on an elmo, being a big elmo fan, and thus thought perhaps it only applied to elmos, but alas!
btw- i've been wanting to introduce to you folks another product...and it goes along with this thread nicely so i will add it now:
Ox-gard Anti-oxidant compound.
This is not necessarily for what steve is fixing, but if the Elmo(Steve) Trick does not work, this may be a stage #2'er.
I bought this for my newest projector(Bolex 18-5) when i was having some issues connecting the new qlv-1 to the original wires which looked like the contacts needed cleaning.
This worked wonders and made my projector contacts work instantly. Dirt cheap. I got it either at canadian tire or lowes or home depot, can't recall, they all have it i am sure so hunt it down folks!.
http://www.gardnerbender.com/en/ox-100b
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Cheers,
Matt 📽
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