I guess it is because these things are never designed by actual projectionists who have to work with them, but engineers who know little about film and say "Oh well, it spins and that's what it's supposed to do". I would never consider purchasing a Strong platter until this error is fixed.

And while they're at it, they should get rid of all those little rollers around the brain. If the platter is working well, then they are unnecessary. Having those rollers there is like an the designers admitting that the platter wraps.

Also, get rid of those itty bitty tiny rollers and replace them with something bigger (and quieter). The whole platter with vacuum cleaner motors is louder than any projector, so get better (and quieter) motors as well. It's like having 12 vacuum cleaners run simultaneously in a 6 screen booth! The projectionists need good hearing to troubleshoot their sound systems, and they don't need the constant barrage of platter motor noise destroying their ears in small booths.

And I won't even get started on what is probably the second worst MUT in the world (ORC's take the cake for the worst with their Super Platter MUTs).

PS Mark--- Any platter with a microswitch is "digital". It's either on or off!

I've gone over these design faults before, but a refresher seems in order. In addition to the payout issues above, you cannot groove the decks on anything but a Christie and Neumade platter. Those of you who haven't grooved your decks have no idea how much gripping power that has on a sliding print! Those Strong-type units use bearing based rollers, which is stupid. I don't like having to put the platter 4 feet from the projector! The last Strong platter installation I did we found that with a mere 6 feet of distance, the payout would just feed the film right onto the floor because of those free-spinning bearing based rollers! The rollers themselves are teeny tiny, which adds more stress to the film during high tension transport (takeup and breakdown). There is no reason not to put standard sized 2 inch rollers like Christie and SPECO uses...at least on the MUT! Why is the takeup elevator only 10 inches (or something like that) tall? The design should permit the projectionist to tug on the film and NOT have the elevator go flying through your ceiling! Then again, why is the takeup elevator way down at the ground, when the film STILL has to travel to the top of the tree anyway? Why not put it higher? What's with the double threading pattern? If the projectionist is running to the top deck, you have to run over this extra jumper roller at the top of the tree. I've seen many a prints scratched because the second roller confuses the projectionist and they will takeup on the lower two decks running over that roller. Likewise I've seen the last part of a long movie scratched because the projectionist skipped that jumper roller when taking up onto the top deck! Also, there is no reason to have the final roller in the chain so damned low. The film should not come into contact with the surface of the platter deck until it is fully standing upright. It should NOT drag one edge across the deck on it's way to the film roll. Why is there no adjustment for the placement of this roller? Why is the feed arm upside down in the brain like Joe mentioned? Why does the one brain roller with the two keepers have the bracket on TOP? This needs to be on the underside so the film may be "placed" into the track and not "threaded through" the track. Gravity works on this planet pretty good folks, there is no reason for the brain to have been designed in this manner. Why are there little protective rollers around the brain like Joe mentioned? An admission of guilt in faulty designing, I agree. Where is the film cleaner mount? Does film never get dirty on one of these platters??? With all of the digital penthouses these days, placing the cleaner on top of the projector is simply not desirable. Look at the breakdown, you have to hold the backtension by hand, and it is impossible to truly do this with even tension! I see LOTS of film damage from Strong's MUT/hand backtension design on breakdown, ranging from cinch mark scratches because of varying backtension to laps of film that protrude from the film roll, which damages the sprockets during shipment back to the depot. But who cares about ruining the print anyway? It's only on breakdown and you'll never have to run that print again, right? Yes indeedy, "to hell with the next guy". Be careful when you are breaking down though! The wind current from those "fin" supports underneath the platter decks will cause the payout to go crazy and toss a print while you are trying to break down another! Then there's that horrid horizontal MUT with no convenient place to put the splicer, and a bizarre array of rollers with an unnecessary spring. Oh no wait, humans are having to apply the backtension, I guess the spring IS a requirement to keep from totally butchering the film on breakdown. If by now you still think the platter is a quality product, why not break a film down on a deck underneath one that is spinning. Just wait until you get the shit knocked out of your head by the deck braces!!! You won't think it is a good design then.

There are just too many things wrong with these units even in the base design alone. Add the microswitch and you've got a horrible platter. Anyone who is satisfied with a mere "for the most part these platters run well", then fine, go ahead and buy them. Anyone who doesn't want to have film damage, get a Christie! A very good alternative for people who cannot handle timing a Christie is a SPECO, which runs very smoothly, handles the film nicely and has a well designed MUT. This is also a quality platter overall. Just don't get the brain design with the clusterfuck of rollers and make sure you get the new center rings and you'll be set. (See the review on the SPECO LP-280)

I am also quite impressed with Kinoton's new payout design. Once they do something about their roller placement, they'll have one heck of a platter.

Now in defense of Pat Moore, I DO like their latest generation of SCDC payouts. They are smooth and don't take off like a bat out of hell. Unfortunately that doesn't fix the rest of the design faults. Will these items ever be addressed Pat?

As it stands today, the Christie can not be topped. Anyone who is actually seeing print tossing or brain wrapping with one of these needs a new tech who can properly set them up. Once set up properly, they run flawlessly and handle film more gentle than anything else.

And Mark, I have never seen a Christie roller freeze up! I'm betting some well-intended projectionist lubed them with the free Lubriplate that Christie provides when the platters were new. As for film jumping out of the brain, that again is a problem that is not a problem. I've only seen that happen one time and that was because the film being ran was old, warped and had been "trimmed" at the edge, supposedly to allow a section with broken sprockets to run (without an edge at all). This is not an issue. Next time the power goes out in a Strong booth and you don't have the time to speed-wind before the next show, why don't you go and unthread the brains so the films can be center dropped? What a pain in the butt the Strong brain design is for unthreading!!! Finally, in Joe's defense, I know he has ran Strong, Christie and ORC (early Super) platters. With him having worked with properly set up Christies, I think that makes him more than qualified to point out foolish design errors in a Strong and ORC/Super. Since a Potts is basically the same thing, that gives him plenty of qualifications there too.

Never needed to groove a STRONG. Never even used the suction cups except on a few odd occasions.

If your operators are having trouble with all those rollers, then train them better.

I don't like the fact there isn't a good place for a splicer during breakdown, but I LOVE the horizontal tables and the minimal backtension. An experienced platter operator can kick serious butt with that table...without damaging a foot of film.

Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! Wes, you should consider that a platter will generally run for 10, 15, maybe 20 years or more. Why penny pinch to save $1000 or whatever amount when you do the math showing how much extra money it costs in the big picture to get a better machine? That makes NO sense. Let's say the platter only runs for 10 years before being taken out of service, and let's assume the price difference is $1000. That's only about a quarter a day! You will more than make up for that in refund money. Penny pinch in an area of the theater that you will end up re-doing at somepoint down the road regardless. Rarely are new platters ever installed in an existing theater. The first purchase is generally permanent. Do it right.

Also, if you are "kicking butt with the breakdown", you ARE damaging your film!!!

I do appreciate your opinions on the platter. I have to say quite a bit of this has not been considered "design faults" over the years. For every lover of a film roller with a bearing, you'll find others that can't stand them; experience probably determines which one is thought to be "troublefree" or easier to troubleshoot; etc., etc.

It's also hard to compare a variac-based platter to an all-electronic version. There are economics to consider and when the economy version does what you want -- namely, handle film reliably and without damage -- that's not a bad deal.

Properly threaded and maintained, a Strong Platter is no more going to damage a print than is a Christie. Conversely, improperly handled a Christie (or any other) Platter can real easily trash a print.

One point I will agree with is the low film tension on the payout side. I don't think the platter needs to be 4ft away to minimize film slack, but there is pretty good sag just from the weight of the film on a 6 or 8ft stretch. Ordinarily this won't cause much of a problem but I do know of exceptions. We have looked at something similar to a pinch roller setup, but we found edge wear on the film increased quite a bit.

We have also looked at making the payout assembly accept film dropped in from the top. There I have no good explanation other than the engineering guys didn't like the reason for the change. I still think there's merit to it and bring it up at our meetings now and again...

quote:

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"Properly threaded and maintained, a Strong Platter is no more going to damage a print than is a Christie. Conversely, improperly handled a Christie (or any other) Platter can real easily trash a print."

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Sorry Pat, but I see LOTS of damaged film coming out of Strong platter booths, in some instances with the SAME operators that run a Christie platter booth. So if a print gets thrown from a platter deck, is that not considered "trashing a print"? I ask because that is THE primary problem I have with Strong/Potts/CFS and such microswitch-based platters. Strong simply must address some of these design problems, most notably the "human backtension" on breakdown. There also needs to be a limit on how fast the MUT can spin, to prevent people from going crazy trying to get home a couple of minutes earlier. This is not in the best interest of the film.

I might also note that I have sold exactly one microswitch platter (Strong Alpha) and have regretted it every day since. That thing on a good week would only throw a print 3 times. There were times it would throw a print once a day! I had every local (and no-so-local) tech that I could pursuade to come over and look at it. Everything checked out fine and all the microswitches were replaced along with the variac, but it was just too damn jumpy. I still catch hell from that company about it. Other microswitch platters around town are the same way. Only the SCDC units run smoothly. How many Christie platters that I service have thrown a print in the last 5 years? Not a one.

Just re-read my complaints above. Yes some of the things in there are personal preferences (like the way the brain threads or having the takeup elevator higher on the tree), but there are also serious design flaws in that post above that will "trash a print" as well. These items really need to be addressed and re-engineered. There is no reason why a microswitch platter can not by default be a quality product. It just isn't yet, at least not to a level of quality I feel appropriate for proper film handling. Therein lies the biggest problem with designing a product, it is impossible to please everyone all the time. All a manufacturer can do is listen to feedback from the field and incorporate everything that they feel will not deter the current quantity of sales and will improve the product without degrading another aspect of it. Most of my complaints about the microswitch platter as the design stands today would be easily implemented without taking away from the other aspects.

This is not to say that a Christie platter can not ever damage film, but as Wes so elegantly puts it, if the tech or projectionist is trained to calibrate it right, it will run perfectly.

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For the microswitch use Grainger # 6X284 which is the same as OMRON # Z15GW-B7-K which sells for $6.18 at Grainger. Be sure to remove the spring at the pivot point on the switch as it's not necessary for this application.

Pat Moore:

As you probably know there are quite a few theaters here in western Washington state equipped with Strong/Potts platters (many of those theaters are Tom Moyer/Act3/Regal) and they wouldn't use anything else! We bought a used Alpha 3 deck in 1994 (the platter was made in 1992) at the Skyline drive-in theater in Shelton, Wash. and it has worked very reliably day in and day out ever since with the only service needed was to replace ONE microswitch that had gone bad (open). The platter design is fine the way it is---don't change a thing! However, the only improvement I would like to see on the makeup table is a place to put the splicer when breaking down a print. Tell the crew at Design and Manufacturing to keep up the good work.

I have used this procedure for 22 years, and it is by the far and fastest way possible for a 2-minute turn-around.

I thread the AW-3's basically the same way. Only thing is, I don't have to worry about switches to throw. When I thread trough the failsafe, and lower take-up roller on the guidance arm, then I bar the machine through by hand to verify threading. Then, I tug the the film to insure the Christie swing-arm is seen by the platter to initiate the tension.

Probably the rest of you might disagree with my next step. That being, I manual motor the excessive leader through. That does not seem to be too much of a problem for the Christie projectors, or any projector for that matter, as long as the motor is allowed to come up to full speed before it is shut down.

If some of you tell me to use a shorter leader, I say "BAH!" I like long leaders. I have a basic pre-determined area on the leader where I want to start my show from. Nothing pisses me off more than to see a short leader where the system "times in" in the middle of a Dolby or DTS logo. One leader fits all......no matter which house I move the film to.

Like I have said, I have been doing this method for 22 years now, and I am totally amused by the way the less-experienced operators fight the equipment to make a half-assed attempt to get on the screen.

My method also eliminates the accidental raising of the carrage (dancer) with a motor switches being in the wrong position other than OFF.

Switches being in the wrong position raise hell with the variac as well as with phase controls because of the current surge, not to mention the possibility of tossing the whole print on the floor or the take-up carriage (dancer) hitting the stop and causing gross mis-alignment with the film guidance hardware nobody seems to really care about. Sometimes I wonder if the surge current is the chief cause of phase control failures.

I see no need to change my procedures...

When I worked with them, we were going through a bunch of bad LEDs. From memory, the green ones at one point were inferior. This had an unfortunate effect upon reliability. I understand that with quality LEDS, these things run beautifully. Since Brad is the unchallenged Christie master, I have no doubt I would become a huge fan with the ones he's in charge of (Grooved decks, large center rings, correctly timed, etc. would make all the difference).

Strong and SPECO are both decent, and I have seen both being pretty reliable. I have not seen the electronic Strongs. The microswitch ones went open circuit a few times, but after replacement switches were installed they chugged along pretty well. It is an inexpensive unit. However, my preference for an inexpensive unit would be SPECO. I think they may be more gentle on film, but that's just my opinion/observation. The only platter I've used which I thought was categorically disgusting was the CFS super platter. There is nothing super about it except that it is super junk. What a waste of space.

My favourite platters overall are the Cinemeccanica and the Kinoton, but moreso the Kinoton. The new IR payout units are gorgeous! Very little can be improved there. Not having any swinging arm whatsoever is so very, very choice! And you should see the sheer finesse and precision with which these things payout film. Wow.

The latest Kinoton makeup tables, as I've said to John W many times, are the finest makeup tables I've seen to date by a wide margin. Back tension is perfectly and automatically controlled (both platter deck and M/U table 'talk' to each other). It will not start winding on before it corrects any slack that may exist (it must sense correct tension before starting), and to stop winding, you simply rotate the speed control. It is not necessary to assist the deck and/or spool, and no tension will be lost, even if you just whip it off. Both deck and spool will smoothly coast to a halt in unison. Alright! At the end of winding a spool to the deck, or vice versa, the system will stop automatically when the film runs out. Of course you should still be there anyway, but still a great feature. The wind on is so even and smooth, after you're done you can just pick up the print. Awesome.

Another thing I love about Kinoton platters is that after the payout, the film just goes up and out, rather than payout - down - up, then out. Simply threading up and out saves time and your back (yes, I know you should bend the knees!). 'nuff said!

One thing I have not tried, but I better give it a shot....that is running my platters with the MUT in event I have a variac failure. That can be done very easy with the LP-270's, and the old Potts/CFS machines, as well as the Xetron XNR series.

But I am not sure sure I can do that with the AW3's, or the Potts/Strong A3's.

I'll have to look at that possibility Saturday when I run Anacortes.