Eiki Slot Load Projectors - Film Damage When Threading

[Tony Massaro]

Hi Everyone,

I noticed that on my Eiki Slot Load projectors will not set the loop correctly and mis-feed the film. So, I wind up with sprocket holes in the center of the frame. This happens regardless of how careful I am in loading the film and aligning it between the rollers.. The remedy so far is to take the film out and reload, but I don't know why this is occurring in the first place. Thankfully this has only occurred on the leader prior to the countdown, so the films themselves were not damaged, just the count in. This happened 4 out of 10 times on one projector yesterday. It was a push button slot load that set the loop automatically.

Has anyone else had this issue?

Thanks,
Anthony

[Maurice Leakey]

Tony
I assume this is the Eiki ESL to which you refer.
Have you got a Service Manual which might help with your loading problem?
You can get printed manuals from the UK for the ESL/SSL series, there are an Instruction Manual and a Repair Manual available. I can highly recommend this company.
Eiki Elf ESL - Series Printed Manual (camera-manual.com)

[Xander van der Merwe]

I have seen similar behaviour when the top roller lever is stuck and doesn’t drop down once you turn the main knob all the way clockwise. However in this case it happens after the threading has completed and due to top loop being pulled up taught by the roller not dropping. The remedy is to remove and clean the top rolled mechanism, lubricate and making sure it goes all the way down once in operation. Might not be the same issue as yours, but it was certainly an issue on a slot load that I restored recently.

[Xander van der Merwe]

I realised my description above was not the best as I referred to this happening “after threading”, which is incorrect since this is a slot load machine. So let my try again:

On my slot load unit, once you had the film inserted and turned the main knob to start the projection, I noticed that the “upper loop forming guide roller” was not lowering and that caused the film in the upper loop to pull too tight over that roller and that caused sprocket hole damage.

in my case the machine (bought on auction) was stored for so long that the roller had become stuck and would not move down and therefore the upper loop could not function correctly since it was pulling the film to tight.

Once I had removed and cleaned and lubricated that mechanism, and the made sure that it goes down once the machine is in operation, the problem went away and it is now working beautifully.

the upper loop forming guide roller can be seen as number 4 in the below picture

[Xander van der Merwe]