Check your lamp bracket ELMO GS1200

[Lee Mannering]

Happily watching my Star Wars trailer reel on a GS1200 and part of the picture started to dim. Removed lamp house cover and inspected to find the two screws holding it in place had worked loose, something I've not had before. I'm guessing as the projector has seen 40 years use and vibration the two dabs of lock seal which is flaking away allowed the screws to loosen.

The lamp bracket now needed repositioning so I look at a couple of other GS projectors to place the bracket correctly.

For reference on the left screw: The top corner of the bracket needs to sit neatly to the black round mount/ Left top of bracket the same on the round mount edge.

The right screw mount top needs to sit level with the top of the round mount.




I hope this minor tip is of help to someone in the future and worth just checking those two screws.

[Shane C. Collins]

Interesting how the lamp bracket is the same as the one in my Elmo FP8-C from the late 60's. Elmo must have carried this design over for the GS series projectors. Made sense for them to do this if you think about it.

[Chip Gelmini]

This is good to know thanks

I have been threading my machines by hand just for the fun of it and I am convinced it works better than autoload. The real kicker is that if the machine is in still mode I can check the threading a few frames either direction for errors.

I suggest you give it a try use a white leader with auto load at first time shut the projector down after auto loading and study the film path so you know where to put the film when you do it by hand

The machine is powered off during manual threading to avoid any errors or mistakes

[Lee Mannering]

Chip Back in the early 70's when auto threading became a popular feature the old brigade of 8mm projectionists disliked projectors with the feature preferring manual threading. It was always a popular topic at the film makers clubs I belonged to back then. I do think we make a more professional looking projectionist manual threading a projector and for 16mm I use a manual threading Elf RM.

[Steve Klare]

I only got into 16mm maybe three years ago, so manual threading is still new to me. It's like driving a car with a clutch: your head needs to be more in the game.

-Then again I run with with plenty of leader for those times when my head isn't!

[Paul Adsett]

I have found that the best way to get the best lamp position on the GS1200 is to project, with no film, onto a white sheet of paper about 8 ins wide, with the lamp in preheat mode. You can then position the lamp bracket by hand to get the maximum and most even brightness on the sheet of paper. You should do this every time you change a lamp, as not all lamps have exactly the same bulb position, due to manufacturing tolerances.

[Brian Fretwell]

Yes, I remember with one slide projector I have they supplied a card with a small hole in to put in place of the slide to give an dimmer image to adjust when fitting a new lamp.