8mm Forum: A curious super 8 Xenon Upgrade

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Posted by Jose Artiles (Member # 471) on October 04, 2007, 06:16 PM:

Hi again folks!
Here in Canary Islands a see yesterday a collector that convert his yelco ds 630 EL in a xenon version thanks to the xenon kit that usually it sell for cars!!..and thanks to a kelonik cinema technician(kelonik is a spanish company that usually makes the projection boots and equipment for 35mm in spain),is amazing how much ligth this lamp can give to the small super 8 gate and the best of all,almost no heat in gate,at first i was thinking that the collector was joking me but when i see last nigth the conversion i must admit that was really amazing,he introduce me to the kelonik technician called Jose Santana and he told me that this kind of conversion is easy to make with the xenon kitt because the kit have all the necesary components like the ballast for the lamp and all,the lamp used was the more powerfull that it can be sell (55 w) and gives a clear white lamp and a 5600 kelvin colour temperature.Curiously that kind of lamp for car need only 12volts to feed the ballast that give the 23.000 volt that the lamps need for start and then once ligth is on just need a small amount of volts to keep ligthing,my question now is what do you think,kevin specially,about this,I think that may be a cheap way to upgrade to xenon in my own opinion.the only limits i see is that that kind of lamps only have 55w max. but for a small home cinemas can be good because 55w xenon gives a really poweful amount of ligth,the film i see was JOAN OF ARC (1948)full feature and looks gorgeous and whith vibrant colours,as i say before the most amazing was the almost absence of heat in the gate because this kind of car lamps give a very poor heat(dont forget that todays car have plastic reflectors almost all)so,again,what do you think?

Posted by Lance Alspaugh (Member # 27) on October 04, 2007, 06:31 PM:

What a creative and interesting report. Would love to hear from Mr. Elmo about this. Sounds like it might be user freindly from an installation standpoint. Jose, are you saying the light output exceeds the normal 200 watt Elmo Bulb in the GS1200?

LA

Posted by Jose Artiles (Member # 471) on October 04, 2007, 08:09 PM:

Hi Lance!,it seems to me that the ligth output is more powerfull than the 200w [Cool]

,thats the strange thing because the car lamp only have 55w output but looks really white and powerful ligth [Eek!]

,the distance from the projector to the screen was almost 29 feet and the projection looks outstanding,we must think that this kind of new technology permits to iluminate the road from almost or more than 164 feet when are installed in cars.its important to say that the lamps that are valid to put on projectors are only the D2S SERIAL because are the one designed for ligth projection on the road,making a small adjustment in a convencional super 8 reflector mirror of any convencional super 8 projection lamp type efr for example it will permit to concentrate the mayor amount of ligth in our small super 8 gate,what i see was that the technician makes a little bigger hole in the back of a esc mirror lamp and put and adjust the xenon car lamp d2s type to concentrate the ligth.When i return to home late at nigth i was really impresed and ask to the technician if he could do the same in one of my yelco 630 the answer was yes but i need to wait some time because he is very busy at time.I wonder how wonderfull my copy of "the thief of bagdad"(1942) will looks with such amount of xenon ligth,i think we need the expert advice from kevin anyway..... [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on October 04, 2007, 11:56 PM:

Hi Jose,

Would you take a picture of that Xenon bulb so I will try to find that here.

Also if you can take a picture of the Xenon inside the projector, please.

What about the focus of the light? any problem with that?

thanks,

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on October 05, 2007, 04:45 AM:

This is a very interesting idea. I don't quite know how the wattage of these lamps is worked out. The Elmo GS Xenon uses a 250W lamp but as we also know the light output on the screen is much brighter than any 250W incandescent lamp.

One thing about the Xenon lmaps is that the light is very neutral which gives it that brighter, cleaner look and where film is concerned it makes the colours jump off the screen as well as giving black & white prints a very pleasing look.

When playing with these lamps it's very important to make sure the the wires are well insulted and kept well clear of any of the internal circuits. As you say they need a very high voltage to get the lamp to strike. This voltage can jump from poor joints etc to anything that will conduct the voltage away including you [Eek!]

Getting a mirror may be a bit of a problem as you really need to get the light concentrated on just the rear of the gate. Cooling I don't think will be an issue but bear in mind that a lot of Xenon machines do have a Dichroic heat reflecting filter between the lamp and the gate. This helps to keep the gate a little cooler and also stops any of the harmful rays from damageing your films especially the colour dyes.

An interesting project keep us up to speed on this if you decide to try it yourself Jose and yes lets see some pics.

I saw a car last night that looked as if the headlight array was made with very bright white LED's....now there's a thought.

Kev. [Smile]

Posted by David Pannell (Member # 300) on October 06, 2007, 02:07 AM:

Just a gentle reminder, in addition to what Kev has just said about the high voltage jumping across gaps; that wattage is NOT a measure of brightness, but of power consumption.

It's a trade-off between light and heat, - efficiency, - if you will. A 1,000 watt electric fire gives off more heat than light, whereas a 1,000 watt lamp gives of more light than heat; though they both consume 1,000 watts of POWER!

So, don't be fooled into thinking that more or less watts equals more or less brilliance - it all depends on the design of the lamp!

Cheers,

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on October 06, 2007, 05:16 AM:

Yes Dave I guess we should really be measuring Lumens or Lux.

Kev.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on October 07, 2007, 04:01 AM:

And a friend of mine tells me that a high voltage of DC will not harm us (which this is thec ase of Jose's story).

Is he correct?

thanks

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 07, 2007, 10:04 AM:

No. DC is worse than AC.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on October 08, 2007, 04:13 AM:

Yes that's my belief too.

Kev.

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