8mm Forum: ST1200 - 800' take up reel required?

This is topic ST1200 - 800' take up reel required? in forum 8mm Forum at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Jim Hepler (Member # 3550) on March 23, 2013, 05:46 PM:

I just got my st1200 and mostly loving it so far but need a little advice. The take up reel it came with is the original 800' elmo, but a piece of it cracked off in shipping. So I'd like to get a new one, preferably several to speed up the screening process. The manual indicates smaller reel cause sound issues. I can't figure out why that would be. Any truth to that? I don't mind getting some 800' and 1200' reels, but smaller are easier to find.

A couple other small questions.. The auto take up on the reel seems to only work on certain films. Some just flop off to the back, others curl on the top but then continue off the reel and don't encircle it. Is this how it always is? Manually slotting isn't a big deal to me, just want to make sure the projector is ok.

Oh, speaking of that, is there a guide to proper cleaning the path and such? New to this!

And finally... After doing a rewind, sometimes when I flip off the reverse on the projector the rewind switch slams off. Kind I loudly actually, and I don't think it is meant to until you switch to forward. Point of concern?

Thanks for any help. Hope eventually I get to the knowledge level to contribute some here!

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on March 23, 2013, 10:45 PM:

Both the ST1200 and GS1200 series do not like take up reels of less than 800ft capacity (in fact the GS manual states so) This is due to the high back torque variation induced on the lower sprocket by the small hub take up reels of less than 800ft, which leads to sound pitch variation, commonly known as WOW, with some film prints.
The Elmos all seem susceptible to this problem, and it is inherent in the design of the machine, although some machines seem to have more of an issue than others, for whatever reason.
I ALWAYS use a 1200ft reel on my GS1200 and only occasionally run into this problem. Although I must say that I have NEVER heard WOW on any Eumig projector, so clearly Eumig did a much better job in this area.

Posted by Jim Hepler (Member # 3550) on March 25, 2013, 02:10 PM:

The seller I bought my ST1200 from mentioned adjusting the torque - maybe related to this? Interesting information, thank you very much.

I've been looking around, I've found a couple of dealers but very few seem to sell 800' or 1200' reels. Anyone have any suggestions?

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