The Chinon 7500 resurrection

[Lee Mannering]

Not the sort of machine usually aim for but I sort of felt sorry for this little Chinon 7500 on sale at sunny Blackpool and no takers.
It was in its box and might work but was a bit from that once plugged in.
No rewind,sound,lamp or fixed speed poor thing. It was sad and alone needing a new owner so we purchased it.

To be honest I couldn't wait to get it home and get it going as the old Dixons Chinon machines were everywhere in the 1970s so a good memory from my youth.

I sorted the variable speed froblems quickly as it was just dirty potentiometers. Rewind was just the old grease going rock hard so removing and replacing that was simples.
No sound was the record switch needing cleaning just as with the Eumig machines. Lamp fault was just a micro switch.

Then we got to the lamp. I've ordered one of the new 500 hour endoscopy lamps to measure how they perform against a regular lamp so will report back on that.

I thought I would bring it up to 21st century so am at present installing A/D block converter so it can output digital sound via my av amp. Ive only to fit the power unit for that then we are done.

I'll post a pic or video when it's completed for fun.

[Osi Osgood]

I'm curious to follow the progress, as, I have a Chinon 9500, and white not the same model, there might be some info I could use doing my maintenance on the 9500.

[Maurice Leakey]

Chinons are underrated because of their plastic gate. I have eight various models of a Chinon and have never had any trouble. I love them.

[Lee Mannering]

Making good progress.
1/ First thing to do is remove the old now very think with age grease from the white gears/drive within the back. I use lithium grease, others may prefer something else when replacing it. I think Reel Image also stock this in the US.
You can carefully remove to old grease with a small amount of Petrol on a cotton bud then let dry.

2/ Using a aerosol of foam cleaner squirt a little onto a cotton bud and clean all the plastic film path guides. Keep it away from anything metal and let dry for 10 minutes.

3/ Aerosol of Silicone spray and using cotton buds carefully spray a little onto the bud and coat the plastic guides. This dries pretty quick but I tend to leave overnight to be sure. This will help protect your precious films from scratching and will cleaning your films with FILM GUARD, the two processes make a very good double whammy of S8 protection.

4/ As with Eumig projectors cleaning the magnetic sound head used to be a problem, but not today Yay!
Buy a new VHS head cleaning cassette perhaps off ebay and take take the cassette apart removing the white tape.
Carefully draw a light pencil line down it 8mm wide and cut down the length, you should just about get two strips out.
Cut it into 2FT lengths. Using some leader S8 film splice the 8mm white head cleaning tape together...1 length.

5/ With the Chinon or Eumig idle/off manually feed the film leader into the sound head and towards the main drive sprocket. Lower the plastic guide so you can pull the leader past it.
Put a few drops of sound head cleaner on the VHS head cleaner tape and engage the sound head turning the main control knob as if projecting a sound film. Slowly pull the film back and forth and this will remove any Oxide off your sound head and closed head guides.

6/ Finish by giving the outside of the casing a general clean and the lens with a suitable lens wide. Only clean you film gate with a gate brush/cosmetic brush.



Well I finished the service so fitted the Analogue to Digital sound converter inside the back cover and tested. This will feed my AV amp with either Optical or Co-Axial Digital sound, I tend to stick with Optical on my Elmo GS1200 as well.

As mentioned I'm about to try one of these new style Xenon gas filled 500hr 150 watt lamps in it over the weekend so I will pop on a further update. Being Xenon filled do take more care if you try one and you can get them delivered off Amazon a little over £9

All good fun!

I'll be back

[Lee Mannering]

Been pondering when the 7500 was introduced to the uk. I think it must have been near Christmas Dec 1978 as my friend in Dixons was talking about a new Chinon. Thank goodness for personal journals.

[Maurice Leakey]

Lee
Here is confirmation with 1978.
Spare part finder – Van Eck Video Services (van-eck.net)

[Lee Mannering]

Tonight's show on the Chinon 7500 with regular halogen lamp
Reel 1

[Mark Todd]

Great Lee, very interesting and super very long term, very reliable machines.

If you can pick one up for £30 say little used in its box, a super in the store cupboard long term back up job.

But !!! you do need to keep an eye on the black plastic in the front sprocket areas as where the film slides/ rubs , it does wear fairly quickly.

Sure you know that Lee, and its the same with any with the same set up.

Though some have a bit harder plastic.

Very nice machine.

Best Mark.

[Osi Osgood]

What's the film, Lee?

[Maurice Leakey]

"Show Boat". Ava Gardner.
Show Boat (1951) - IMDb

[Lee Mannering]

Top man Maurice.

Yes Show Boat, in my modest opinion the most colour saturated print Derann ever did thats until the lab damaged the negative. I purchased the end of negative life print at Blacky cheaply but nice to project it once again even with the negative damage.
The end sequence of Ava breaks my heart every time. Such a beautifully lit film as well.

My original print I had 2 tracks on having dubbed the audio commentary on the balance track.

[Dave Bickford]

Chinons are underrated because of their plastic gate. I have eight various models of a Chinon and have never had any trouble. I love them.

I don't recall the exact model, but I received a silent Chinon as a birthday gift in 1982. I hated it. It had the plastic gate. The cheap (possibly) plastic lens was awful and the picture wasn't very stable. It was the very bottom of the line model at the time. Maybe I got a lemon. Replaced it months later with a better, but also not-so-great B&H FilmoSound. I have a Bolex and an Elmo now so I'm finally happy.

[Graham Ritchie]

Dave
Looking back to the 1970s Chinon had a bad name out here as bottom of the line projector that damaged films, such was its reputation I kept clear of Chinon altogether. Only Bolex SM8, ST1200, and later when they were cheap the GS1200, Although they had issues as well, but nothing like what I heard about Chinon projectors at the time, nothing would ever make me get one

[Ed Gordon]

Check out Eivind Mork's video of the Q&A with Ged Jones. Ged mentioned that Derann found that films run through one particular model of Chinon machines caused a lot of damage. You will find Ged full comments at about 17 minutes into the video.

[Lee Mannering]

Probably the 330 that.

Less we forget that some Dixons Prinz s8 sound projectors were supplied by Eumig painted grey. Good at the time but entry level.