Exploding Eumig

[John Armer]

Do you ever have one of those nights projecting when nothing seems to go right?

Last night I got out my copy of RIDDLE OF THE SANDS which is squeezed onto two 800ft spools. I recently found a beautiful Kowa 16H scope lens and I know that this is a good print, so I thought I'd see what it looked like projected on the Eumig S940.

I watched a couple of trailer reels first, then went onto the main feature. The 800ft reels were so full (this is a 5 x 400ft release so each 800ft spool was literally brim full) and as I was starting to thread the film, about 50ft of film decided to despool itself and onto the carpet. 10 minutes later, having eventually got the film back onto the reel without kinking it, I managed to get it threaded and was just getting ready to focus it, switched on the lamp and nothing. Bulb had blown, so I thought.

I took off the cover off the Eumig and got another lamp. Still nothing. A third? still no light. I wiggled the bulb a little and it lit up so it turns out I had a duff lamp holder. I can easily replace these and I have some spares but I wasn't going to do it there and then, so I resorted to plan B - the Eumig S938.

I got the 938 out of the cupboard and its box and swapped the lens from the S940 (it's a Xenovaron 1.1 with the proper Eumig fixings). I opened up the machine and gave it a clean down prior to threading the film, and switched it on. I like to have it running for a while before threading to get up to temperature and speed etc, so I turned the lamp on.

Bang. There was a hell of a crack and glass everywhere and a smell of burning. it sounded like a gun had just gone off inside the projector.

I quickly turned the machine back to standby. The lamp was glowing dimly as it should when switched on - where had all that glass come from? It was all over the inside of the machine. The burning smell seemed to be getting worse so I pulled the plug and recovered.

I thought the lens had smashed at first. It wasn't that and it couldn't be the lamp because it was still glowing when I switched it off. Or could it? Turns out it was the halogen lamp - the glass envelope had exploded, leaving the filament intact, and it was still glowing.

So, the next half hour was spent vacuuming out the projector to make sure that I'd cleaned it all and there was no glass left anywhere.

I've never had a bulb explode like that - they normally just fail without much excitement. This was a hell of a bang, like a firecracker, and I was pretty close to it without the cover on - a lesson there for me. I was actually quite relieved it was only the bulb as these can be swapped out easily and not something more serious, like a diode going pop. But even though the glass had exploded the filament was intact. How could that possibly happen?

Having cleaned out the projector and fitted a new bulb, and about an hour after first attempting to watch RIDDLE OF THE SANDS, I finally managed to sit down and watch it. What a lovely print it was and it looked superb with the new lens.


The exploding Eumig, cleaned and with a fresh lamp. Will the remaining film on the supply reel fit on the take up spool? It did yes, but there wasn't much room left.

[Paul Adsett]

That must be a once in a lifetime event John. I have never had a bulb explode in 60 years of running cine projectors. Your 938 looks great - wonderful projectors, especially so with a fast high quality lens.

[Steve Klare]

Hi John,

I think there was a small crack in the glass that spread when the lamp heated up. It may even have been a manufacturing defect and unavoidable for you. (-or maybe some surface contamination?)

I don't anything electrical could ever do this. That would blow the filament.

[John Armer]

Your 938 looks great - wonderful projectors, especially so with a fast high quality lens.

Thanks Paul, you are the one who switched me onto these high-end Eumigs.

[John Armer]

I think there was a small crack in the glass that spread when the lamp heated up. It may even have been a manufacturing defect and unavoidable for you. (-or maybe some surface contamination?)

I don't anything electrical could ever do this. That would blow the filament.

Agreed, Steve. I've had the PJ about a year and it's the lamp that came with it (all the way from Germany). It's an old lamp as it has the little positioning button on the side that modern lamps don't seem to have. I hope I never have this experience again!

[Osi Osgood]

I'm glad to hear that you are not injured!

[Paul Adsett]

John, three recommendations for your 938:

1. Use on;y OSRAM XENOPHOT EFR lamps, they are about 10% brighter than the competition.

2. It's worth measuring the voltage at the lamp, with the lamp fully on. It should be very close to 15v +/- 0.25v. On my particular 938 I only measured 14.2 volts at the lamp, and was getting a dimmer picture than I liked. So I set the transformer voltage from 117v down to 110v, and that boosted the lamp voltage to right on 15v, which is where it should be, and the picture was very much brighter.

3. Try and get hold of a spare SOUND HEAD PRESSURE PAD. Its that black plastic block which is pushed up underneath the sound head by that little red plastic HEX nut. What you need to do it cutoff the two white plastic fingers on the balance track (narrow stripe track 2) leaving the ones on the main track 1 unaltered. Then use this modified pressure pad all the time, except when you want to run or record stereo prints. That way you will save a ton of wear on that tiny track 2 sound head.

[Brian Fretwell]

I either had a lamp blow and smash the heat filter or the heat filter smash and hit the lamp causing it to blow in an Agfa Family unit and that only had an 8v 20w lamp in it. It was still under guarantee so I took it back.

[Lee Mannering]

Sounds like quite a show John. You should have been sat next to one of my Elmo GS1200 Xenon projectors with me when the lamp exploded in front of a audience of around 200 people back in el 80's now that was a bang and a half with glass cascading down from the sky over me and a few of the audience. The inside of the Elmo was like a glass factory and put the fear of God into me.
Only other bang I've had was during a show at home with a 9.5 sound projector when a Capacitor went bang and lit up the room. The frowned upon Pathe Son sound projector continued to run so we carried on with the feature film not touching anything.

As we used to say in the 80's "You just don't get all this fun with Video"

If you have any trouble with lamps frosting over of any sort of blow always change the lamp connector block. If you need one John contact me and I will post you a new one out.

[Janice Glesser]

John Armer your story shows how resilient us film watchers can be. After all the problems you still watched the film and enjoyed it. Love it!