Proper lubrication and other questions

[Dave Bickford]

Thought I'd start doing some preventive maintenance on my Bolex 18-5L. As expected, what little grease is left on the various gears is quite sticky. What is the best way to remove the old sticky grease and what is an appropriate new grease to use? I'm thinking white lithium grease. Thoughts?

Also, how does one access the pull-down claw mechanism? I'm assuming that could use some new lube too, but it seems very difficult to access. I'd rather avoid too much disassembly.

And finally, in the USA our nominal voltage is 120v. The 18-5L allows the selection of 117v or 125v. I suppose either one would be fine, but which one is the most appropriate?

A final-final note. Need a new bulb for the Bolex and one of my Sankyo's. Amazon seems to have a plentiful supply of what I need, but are there alternate sources for projector bulbs in the USA? It's been over 20 years since I've had the need to order a bulb, so I'm sure the playing field is very different now.

[Janice Glesser]

Hi Dave! White lithium grease should work just fine to replace old dried sticky grease. As far as the claw just make sure that it's clean. A few drops of a light oil wouldn't hurt but it shouldn't need any other lubrication if it's been stored well. I set my bolex projectors to 60/ 117 v. As far as bulb suppliers I usually look for the cheapest at the time. I use Amazon, eBay, and bulbamerica.com. hopefully you don't need the spaceman bulb and just the halogens. I've converted all my Bolex projectors to the more modern halogen bulb.

[Dave Bickford]

Hi Dave! White lithium grease should work just fine to replace old dried sticky grease. As far as the claw just make sure that it's clean. A few drops of a light oil wouldn't hurt but it shouldn't need any other lubrication if it's been stored well. I set my bolex projectors to 60/ 117 v. As far as bulb suppliers I usually look for the cheapest at the time. I use Amazon, eBay, and bulbamerica.com. hopefully you don't need the spaceman bulb and just the halogens. I've converted all my Bolex projectors to the more modern halogen bulb.

No "Spaceman" bulb. LOL This machine was modified to accept a halogen bulb at some point in its life before I acquired it over 20 years ago. It does run hot though. (when the bulb is actually working)

Still not sure how to access the claw mechanism for lube purposes. Should probably just leave it alone.

[Joseph Banfield]

If you want your lamps to last much longer I would set it for 125 volts since I'm rather sure these days in most of the U.S. the voltage supplied is higher than 117 volts.

The same applies here in Europe where most people think we use 220 volts. In fact the AC voltage here is now close to 237 volts at the outlets! So, in that case we should be setting our projectors here in Europe on 240 instead of 220 volts! Of course you will get a bit brighter light using 220 but a very short lamp life will be the cost!

[Brian Fretwell]

Yes, I was told by a supplier that a 10% decrease in voltage will double the life of a lamp.

[Paul Adsett]

The voltage at my house right now is 123.2v. So setting your projector at 117v may shorten your lamp life quite a bit, so first thing is to actually measure your house supply voltage. Having said that, the best thing to do is to actually measure the voltage at the lamp socket, with the lamp illuminated, to see what voltage is actually being provided to the lamp. In the case of my Eumig 938 Stereo I was only getting 14.0 volts at the 15 volt rated EFR lamp and my picture was pretty dim. I changed the transformer tap to 110v and now get 15.2 volts on the lamp and a much brighter picture. But if you want maximum lamp life certainly leave your transformer at the 125v setting.

[Osi Osgood]

OK this isn't really helpful, but I couldn't help noticing the irony of this topic stating proper lubrication, and on the same day, in another category, 10 adult films being listed, I couldn't help but notice that! Now, I think I will watch some Python ... Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!

[Shane C. Collins]

I agree with Paul, setting your transformer tap to 110v will give a much brighter image on screen. I've done this with all my projectors and I'm quite pleased with the end result! Even my little Bolex 18-5L Super 8 projector, with a 75 watt bulb, is as bright as my Bolex SM8 which uses a 100 watt bulb.

[Chip Gelmini]

Look up Optech lamp supply in North Andover on Lupine road. John is an excellent projector technician and going to this store is a trip down memory lane you get inside and you're in a main street camera shop circa 1970........He did an excellent job on my GS 1200 machines I had several done when I lived on the Cape before I moved to Florida

[Dave Bickford]

Look up Optech lamp supply in North Andover on Lupine road. John is an excellent projector technician and going to this store is a trip down memory lane you get inside and you're in a main street camera shop circa 1970........He did an excellent job on my GS 1200 machines I had several done when I lived on the Cape before I moved to Florida

Thanks for the lead! I didn’t think anyone serviced ye olde film projectors anymore. As cheap as I am, I’d rather pay someone else to re-lube my Bolex (ha ha insert 6th grade joke here). All kidding aside it’s a very clean machine. Inside and out it looks brand-new. Built like a tank. I love it! Even with the ancient, sticky grease (and burnt out bulb) it still runs great! 😁

[Dave Bickford]

OK this isn't really helpful, but I couldn't help noticing the irony of this topic stating proper lubrication, and on the same day, in another category, 10 adult films being listed, I couldn't help but notice that! Now, I think I will watch some Python ... Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!

I saw that too. My inner tween self LOL’ed 😂

[Chip Gelmini]

[Janice Glesser]

Dave Bickford Don't you just love how the 18-5L purrs when it runs? You encouraged me to pull mine off the shelf and run a couple reels of film. I had forgotten how much a smooth running machine it is... Beautifully crafted and engineered!

[Steve Klare]

This is where I buy my projection lamps:

Replacement Light Bulbs

He's reasonable enough that every once in a while I take stock and buy enough that I end up with about three of every lamp that I use. He's also good with things like sockets: very knowledgeable and it's nice to know that the other side of the conversation is with a human being, not just a website feeding a conveyer belt and a shipping department.

Projection lamps are more variable in price than anything else I know. Maybe 20 years ago when I was seriously getting back into film I started to realize running with just the lamp in the machine was a little too much like going on a trip without a spare. I went to a camera shop: he didn't have any in stock ("Nobody uses those anymore!"), but out of the kindness of his heart he agreed to order one for me: $25, "come back next week".

This was $25 for a regular old EFP in year 2002 dollars, when 25 bucks might fill a gas tank. The seller above has Osram EFP at $5.84 each and Philips EFP at $6.87 each in 2022 dollars, and I don't need dedicate an hour of my life to getting the thing!

-all a matter of finding somebody that sells in volume: that camera shop may have only sold one projection lamp that month.

Lamps like EFP and EFR are also used in equipment like microscopes and (I think), that overhead light the Dentist uses to stun you into laying still. You find them on these specialty websites too: different market, higher prices.

[Shane C. Collins]

Dave Bickford Don't you just love how the 18-5L purrs when it runs? You encouraged me to pull mine off the shelf and run a couple reels of film. I had forgotten how much a smooth running machine it is... Beautifully crafted and engineered!

I love mine too but lately it's chewing leader every other time I load film. I can't quite figure out why it's doing this, once loaded it's fine. I'm actually in the process of experimenting with the idea of converting it to an all manual loading machine. My thought was to replace the auto loading with the manual film guides from a Regular 8 machine. In order to do this I will need to find a parts machine or someone that may have the film guides from said machine. The Bolex SM8, fully auto-loading machine, I recently purchased works perfectly every time. This machine shares many of the same high quality parts similar to the 18-5's.