Long Play Forever ?

[Steve Lee]

last night I decided to see if it was at all possible to construct a long play unit that could be bolted onto any projector using the projectors handle as the fixing point, by simply placing two bolts through it onto a backplate and then clamping the whole thing tight. To my surprise it works!
Please don't laugh as this is the Mark I version, and it needs to go back to the drawing board to iron out a few bits here and there but it really works with no problems at all.
I need to redesign the spindles and 3d print them, so they have a threaded shaft on the end so it is possible to secure the reels with a wing nut ( in the same way as Fumeo did ).
The entire unit is made out of box and L section aluminium and is simply bolted together. The motor is a 12v dc 1000 rpm (6 € from ebay) and drives the take up via a timing belt with tensioner, and is controlled by a Speed Control Switch.
I have tried this out on three of my machines GS1200 / ST600 and pictured here on my Eumig S940 with no problems.
I found out that you just need to have enough tension on the take up before starting the machine, so it doesn't snatch the film on the start up, and after this you can walk away from it till the end of the reel. It also can rewind the film by reversing the reels.
Maybe something like this in the future could be the answer of keeping our old ageing machines reels turning who knows ?.

Steve.

[Oliver Feld]

Wow! It looks amazing!

[Dominique De Bast]

Waw ! Fantastic.

[Burton Sundquist]

...It's for this very reason I am holding on to the few 2000' reels I have. The Idea has been rattling around in my head for some time but I was stuck on how to control the take-up torque. If you could share more I would be very interested!

[Osi Osgood]

Pretty cool. The only possible issue I can think of is the extra wear and tear on the motor, as it was designed for the smaller reel size, hence, more wear and year on the motor, potentially bringing down the life of the projector. Just a thought.

[Steve Lee]

We know that electronics work better and longer when left powered up, this would also apply to the lamp not being switch on and off so many times, also the motor and the projectors mechanical control mechanism, switches ect not being used so much with this type of system.
Also the projectors motor is no longer used for powering the take up reel so reducing the strain on it, and this goes for rewinding the film too.
Who knows?

[Janice Glesser]

Ingenious Steve! Great work!

[Brian Fretwell]

I suspect this would not work on the Eumig Mk926 GL and other early 900 series machines as there is no top sprocket to pull the film off the reel, but great on all others

[Steve Lee]

Hi Brain.
I don't think this would be a problem. Thinking this through, it takes less energy to pull the film off of the outer diameter of say a 1200ft reel because of the momentum and the speed in which the reel turns. It is only when the film nears the center hub that it need to pull harder to make the reel spin faster, not so different than running a 400ft reel. It's just the take up that has to do all of the work.
I own a pedestal 16mm in which I have to put a back tension on the feed reel to stop it getting ahead of itself because of the momentum ,it seems the larger the reel the less energy to move it.
Up in my attic somewhere I have a Eumig S905 GL. I will try to find it and try it out.
Steve.

[Steve Lee]

Sorry Brian for spelling you name wrong, I am typing English on a French azerty keyboard. Believe me it's not easy.

[Chip Gelmini]

Nice work. I wish I could design my own long play system .......👹👹👹👹👹

[Douglas Meltzer]

Steve,

Clever.....Nicely done!

[Brian Fretwell]

Hi Steve, with my typing I often make that misspelling of my name.

Sometimes it is not just the force needed but a sort of resonance with the spring at the top of the gate that causes the film to sort of "Bounce" the reel taking too much off then the reel stopping and the inertia of the stopped spool restarting making it worse. It is a delicate system and not well liked by some.

[John Burgess]

Excellent job Steve! I have three St 8 machines I have converted to long play. I used arms from 16 mm machines so that I could use large spools which I convert to 8mm and they fit straight onto the spool arm nose . There are loads of spools out there and so cheap . I use small mains motors from eBay for take up, spring belts are good as they act as a slipping clutch as the reel becomes heavier. Often wondered why the likes of Eumig, Elmo never offered machines with this facility.
John

[Steve Lee]

Hi Burton.
Years ago having worked with many different 35mm tower systems, and like you I have had this rattling around in my head for some time. My thoughts were I if this works for 35mm it must work for 8mm.
Knowing with 35mm there is a great amount of tension needed on the take up to be able to start the machine. It only takes a split second for the film to leave a roller by 1mm for it to be all over, as it will snap back and rip the film. I have also witnessed somebody miss thread a roller to end up with two 16mm prints at the end of the show! due to the amount of tension needed.
But I think it comes down to the ratio of the amount of film in length = time in seconds for it to pass through the machine to find the amount of tension needed, maybe somebody can help us out with this? for example the length of 24 frames on 35mm must be at least 15 times longer than 24 frames on super 8.
It is one of the reasons why 70mm could never be run from a tower, due to even more tension needed.
As I found out it takes such little tension to start the film running and to let it run with no adjustment needed through the entire 1200 ft reel. The take up must be driven from the motor by some type of belt as John Burgess has rightly said, as it needs to have some type of a slipping clutch system in case too much power is applied from the motor.
With the cost of all of the parts to do this now (for me, under 25 euros), even if it all go belly up, just stick it on an old machine working or not, bung a couple of large reels on it and you have got one hell of a display piece!
My advice is just go for it, there's nothing to lose as I found by trying.