Help needed on Elmo GS - 1200

[Darryl Cheek]

Hi Everyone, Darryl the newbie here in Durban, South Africa.
I have an Elmo GS-1200 in really great condition. However the sprockets are not turning and the lamp does not come on fully. The sprocket motor seems a little stiff when I turn it manually. All fuses are in order. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[Graham Ritchie]

One place to start is to make sure your ESS switch is in the normal position, give it a bit of a work out left to right and see if that helps, another place is those two relays below the sound drum, give them a light push around with something long if it makes the motor run then both need to be replaced, and lastly although, but I am sure there are more, the motor control board itself hopefully not, but anything is possible with those projectors. If the motor does come to life I think the lamp will as well. Its most likely been sitting around not getting used for many years, they don't like it, but if it does come to life, give the projector a good run without the lamp being on. You will find on the forum plenty of information regarding problems with the GS1200, its well worth reading.

[Darryl Cheek]

[Darryl Cheek]

If these are the relays I’ve given them a good push and bang. Still no go.

[Darryl Cheek]

News! When I switch on and press forward or reverse the motor spins for 2 seconds. You then have to switch off to get it to spin again.

[Graham Ritchie]

Not sure on this one Darryl, I can only think, is to disconnect the motor drive belt just to see what happens when you again press FWD does it keep running and if it does how tight is the projector main shaft to turn?. If the motor does run fine with the belt off, can you feel how much torque coming out of the motor.? The reason I mentioned the relays earlier, is that I have a GS1200 that sometimes wont run at all when I first switch it on. I found the problem to being those relays as when I gave them a light push everything comes to life. I am in the process to fix it properly by replacing both of them. However in your case I am not sure, you might have to start by replacing them in the hope its not the control board being next. I wish you well with this Darryl, it does sound like a process of elimination starting at hoping for a simple fix, then on to more serious stuff'

Anyway keep us all informed and best of luck.

[Darryl Cheek]

I can’t believe it Graham, was so simple! The little speed switch at the rear was slightly ( very slightly ) down. If I hadn’t fiddled with it I would never have noticed. So sprockets are once again turning.
However the lamp is not turning on. Only an orange glow when you look through the lens. Is it burnt out? I would have thought there would be nothing!

[Brian Fretwell]

An orange glow would indicate that the lamp is not getting full voltage, maybe just the pre-heat voltage, or lower. Not burnt out or you wouldn't see any light.

[Osi Osgood]

This is good. I'm in the same predicament myself.

[Graham Ritchie]

Great news Darryl

Regarding the lamp it will be the socket where the two lamp pins go. Over time that lamp socket gets corroded, and as such the resistance increases until they burn out. You can still most likely get the lamp warming up "a glow" but when you apply full voltage the lamp pins to socket contacts just cant take it. Its a common problem with the GS1200 they never had what I would consider good contact from day one for the amps flowing through them.

The fix is easy, either get another socket of the same type or get a decent one from any electrical shop and make it fit.

One thing I would try first, and that is to remove the lamp and clean up the lamp pins themselves with something like a wet and dry paper 320 grade paper, anything to get those pins nice and clean "good contact". You will find that even with new lamps, its important to clean those pins up before fitting the lamp, any resistance to high current flow, then things will heat up at the contact points causing the socket in time to burn out.

Cleaning the pins might be enough, just depends on the condition of that socket.

[Rik Jackman]

Hi Darryl - I'm assuming the auto-thread lever isn't stuck down? I think on the GS the lamp does not fully illuminate until the auto-thread lever automatically releases once the film loads on the the take up reel?

[Osi Osgood]

Rik is right about that.

[Darryl Cheek]

Rik hit the nail on the head! I thought it didn’t look right. Put a movie through it and also noticed the rear feed also had to be unfolded.
All working now. Great machine and doesn’t seem to have done much work at all.
Thank you everyone for your input. I’m going to be enjoying myself with the grandkids next weekend 😀

[Jason Smith]

Before you put any precious films through your GS-1200, I would recommend checking the film path of the projector for wear.
You could potentially scratch your films, if your GS-1200 has any wear.
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-b...c;f=3;t=003379