8mm Forum: Basic maintenance help

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Posted by Dan Klionsky (Member # 5245) on February 09, 2016, 04:56 PM:

I am an 8mm novice and recently purchased a eumig Mark S802 projector that seems to work fine. The manual I downloaded from the web did not provide too much information. In particular, I would like to know if there is a good reference for how to maintain this projector. Any specific things I should do on a regular basis to keep it running? Anything to avoid? I got this projector for a good price, and thought I could use it to learn some basics, see if I am really interested in 8mm, and then possibly move up to a more expensive model.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on February 09, 2016, 07:32 PM:

Hi Dan,

Welcome!

I guess you could say the best reference is right here. The thing that's lacking is an index.

Cleanliness is more than half the game. It directly effects the quality of the image on screen and the lack of it puts excessive wear and even outright damage on your films.

Cleaning the gate is important: remember to line up the inching knob as described in your owner's manual or you may damage the machine's claw.

You can (and should) clean inside the sound head.

Here Paul Adsett describes it step by step:

Cleaning Eumig Sound Heads

This sounds very hard, but taken one step at a time isn't bad at all.

There is a point at the very end of the film path where the film passes through an enclosed guide with many tiny rollers inside it. Before you open it to inspect and clean inside lay the machine on its back (speaker side down). These rollers are extremely lively and love to escape!

(The next time I open this I will clean off the table and place the machine in the middle of the table.)

Clean your lens both front and back. I went years before I cleaned the back of the lens and the image began to suffer from all the crud that was building up back there!

Beyond that it's just general housekeeping inside the chassis: movie projectors are just magnets for dust and are usually full of film fragments and emulsion dust too. Any of this stuff is just poised to wind up in the film path and on your films,

-Show it the door!

Posted by Dan Klionsky (Member # 5245) on February 10, 2016, 06:10 AM:

Thank you, Steve (and Paul). Method 2 does look a little intimidating for the first time, but I will follow the instructions as soon as I have a chance and see how it goes.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on February 10, 2016, 08:11 AM:

You're welcome!

-as I said: it is a little scary at first, but it is actually just a series of simple steps. Lately I am done in something like 15 minutes.

Once you have tried it you won't be as reluctant the second time.

For the record: don't be too surprised if you get in there and find it fairly clean. In this case the value is knowing nothing nasty is building up in there getting ready to cause you grief.

-in this business what you don't know can hurt you a whole lot!

This goes doubly for something that happens downstream of the lens: you won't see it until the second time you project a damaged film...and all the ones you've projected since.

Posted by Dan Klionsky (Member # 5245) on February 10, 2016, 08:55 AM:

That is a good point/caution--not noticing the problem until the film is projected a second time. Thanks, that will definitely force me to clean the head before I do anything more!

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on February 10, 2016, 08:59 AM:

-Something I learned at great sorrow some years ago....

Posted by Dan Klionsky (Member # 5245) on March 09, 2016, 06:03 PM:

Okay, I finally had time to try the basic maintenance. I got the side panel off (and will ultimately add a couple of cautions or amendments to the instructions for beginners like me), but hit a snag. I could not budge the screw that attaches the sound head to the chassis. I did not want to strip the screw slot, so I gave up on that and just ended up cleaning as in method #1. So a first question is whether you can advise what to do about removing that screw. However, a bigger concern is that after reassembling the unit and trying a couple of films I could no longer get sound. The only thing I did to the sound head was unplug it, and then I plugged it back in (and I did go back and recheck to make sure it was plugged in). So I do not think I did anything with alignment (noting the cautions for method #2, but I never got that far). All I can get is a loud, deep buzz from the speaker. It did work before, so I know it is not a question of the unit having been broken (i.e., before I opened it up). So, what happened?

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on March 10, 2016, 08:30 AM:

Hi Dan,

At this distance the best I can offer you is a guess. Maybe while you were removing and then replacing the connector on the sound head you accidentally damaged the connection: broke a pin inside the connector, or sheared a wire off where it meets the connector, maybe broke a conductor on the head itself.

I don't know what's on the other end of this harness: maybe you unplugged it on the other side.

Those screws usually don't fight back. Mine comes out easily and goes back in much the same. My biggest worry with all this kind of stuff is always putting it down someplace where when I go to find it again I find it's evaporated!

I'd hate to think yours is corroded in, because of what that would mean for the rest of the projector. It may be over-torqued, which would mean you need to soak some light oil into the threads, let it sit a while and try again.

Maybe somebody forgot they aren't putting a propeller on a container ship and overdid it a little!

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