Elmo VP-A Belt Replacement Issue

[Rennie Taylor]

Hello!

I have a question about replacing a belt in an Elmo VP-A. I am referencing how the belt should look in this model from the Van Eck website (image is attached).

I am having an issue getting the belt into the proper orientation because the far left gears are in the way. Will I have to remove the gears in order to place the belt in? Would anyone know how to do this without damaging these parts? I am completely new to this so any advice would be appreciated.

Please let me know!

Thanks,
Rennie

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Haven't owned this particular projector before. But judging from the images I'm afraid that yes, some disassembly is needed to access those pulleys to thread new belt in.

My assumption is that it would start with the gear in the middle to be removed from the shaft by unclipping the e-ring using a flatbed screwdriver prying it off (caution - don't let it fly away!). After that the assembly of parts in the rear would be reveled, and we'll then have to find out how to deal with them.

[Rennie Taylor]

Hi Nantawat,

Thanks for your reply!

I have carefully removed the e-rings on two of the gears. That process went smoothly.

Now I am stuck. There are two gears with strange pins that are difficult to remove. It seems like these two gears hold the metal plate which is what I need to remove.

Have you ever encountered these pins or have any recommendation in removing them safely?

I would love to get this projector up and running again.

Rennie

[Shane C. Collins]

I'm not familiar with this projector either, but what about the bracket that looks to be screwed in place? I've drawn an orange arrow to highlight it. It would seem if this wasn't there the belt would line up with the pulleys. But I'm also not seeing the whole thing here either so just a guess.

[Shane C. Collins]

Here are some photos from the Van Eck Video Services website. Not sure if they may help you figure out how to route the belt?

[Rennie Taylor]

Hi Shane,

Thanks for chiming in.

I have removed that bracket before and, unfortunately, it is unrelated to the metal plate that I need to remove in order to have the belt in the proper orientation.

I have been using the Van Eck pictures you attached as reference for how the belt should look. I tried setting up the drive belt in another way before and the belt would just slip off during projection.

It seems like I have to remove the gears with the pins, but I am not sure.

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

I can see no other way to remove that metal bracket other than removing those pinned gears first. A help from a plier may do the trick.

[Rennie Taylor]

Update: The projector works!

I could not pull the pins out so I "hammered" them out carefully. Then, I removed the metal plate and threaded the belt accordingly. Afterwards, I carefully reassembled the gears by reversing the steps.

The belt came off the path initially when switching from reverse to run (like before), but it just needed to get used to its new configuration. Now it works perfectly.

Also, I should have clarified earlier than this model was an Elmo VP-A Dualmatic.

Thanks Nantawat and Shane for your input.

[Shane C. Collins]

That's awesome news! Glad to hear you got it running again.