Kodak Moviedeck 475 Troubleshooting (or alternately Keystone C-18 !)

[Gary Caiola]

Hi to all,

I'm new to this forum and inherited this old Moviedeck 475 from my dad, who passed away several years back. I recently realized it was in my mom's house with a bunch of old family 8mm films. It's in decent condition but not been used in probably 25+ years! I'd love to get it working to view those films. When I start it, it makes a lot of loud humming noise & projector light comes one. But I can't feed the film into it. Also the 'take-up' reel does not spin. I'm unsure if take-up reel should spin before any film has been fed into it or not, actually. I searched elsewhere online and got some basic info. I can't see that any film is broken/stuck in the feed mechanism. But I really can't see anything at all. And I hesitate to take it apart, for fear I will never get it back together properly. After reading other info online it sounds like this may be a lost cause, due to age and parts availability, but I wanted to check with some of you experts.

While searching online, I found this forum and saw a response from Janice Glesser on a similar topic from a few years back, that she had a pdf manual with some info on common problems and troubleshooting. I just sent a direct message to Janice, but it occurs to me it would be wise to submit this to the full group, since there are probably a lot of experts on similar projectors. I'm glad to send some photos or video (If this site supports that), but there is very little access to the area where the problems is, without me taking things apart. So I don't know if that would help.

Note my dad also had a Keystone C-18 8mm projector that is MUCH OLDER (maybe 1940's?) so I'm guessing it belonged to my grandfather. This would be an alternative to view the family movies, but at the very least, it is missing one of the springs (instead of belts?) that interconnects to spin one of the drive wheels that spins the multiple reels. Although this projector is much simpler than the moviedeck, I have no info or part manual on it and thought the Moviedeck might be the easier option to repair. But maybe not? Maybe I should start a different thread or post on the Keystone projector to consider repair of it. Sorry to confuse these two different issues and projectors in this conversation.

I'm glad to send photos or video of any of this, if you think that would help?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/insights/opinions/docs you can share!
Gary

[Janice Glesser]

Welcome Gary! Just something simple is to make sure the file type is set correctly... 8mm or Super 8mm. I'm pretty sure the take-up reel starts turning when you start the film feed...but I'll have to check mine. When reels don't turn this can mean a broken belt or gear...not good on this complicated machine.

[Shane C. Collins]

I would recommend buying another machine online to view your movies. There are many to choose from, both good, and bad. These Kodak Moviedecks are not the best, and haven't aged well. In fact they probably aren't the kindest to film. May I suggest something like the Eumig Mark 610D, they will play both Regular 8 and Super 8. This is a sprocketless design, and very kind to film. Also the Sankyo Dualux 2000H is a nice compact projector that will play both formats. My projector of choice is the very robust Eumig Mark S 709. Another well built dual gauge machine that is kind to film. However, these Eumig's and many from those days will require maintenance to get them up and running. Not hard to do but takes time, and some knowledge to work on. The other two machines I mentioned can usually be brought back to life with a belt change, and some basic cleaning. Projecting film is a lot of fun, but it takes a good machine to protect your films, and one that can be easily maintained. Below is the Eumig Mark 610D (first photo), then the Sankyo 2000H.