Vis 8's have air cooling of the gate and with cold mirrors and the heat shield don't 'normally' require water cooling.....

The West end is of course an exception in so many ways and in the largest screesn do indeed have water cooling. If its there then use it but I doubt many would have put it in if they were to build new. However, in general cold mirrors and heat sheilds seem to be the option taken. There are always exceptions of course.

Les, as a note I was at The Granada Harrow for a while, where two of my Vic 8's came from. They were very early RK60's but had been quite well looked after. Had to change an intermittent in one of them recently.... but thats not bad considering their age. The other two came out of the Haymarkt in the West end and I'm sorry to say had not been so well looked after. But they now all run beautifully and will run for many years I'm sure. As for the two Vic 4's from Harrow they were again in good condition. The only problem was with a motor that needed to be re wound, about a year before it closed. I'd changed the oil pumps and the fire shutter govenor apart from that they were very quiet and steady right up to the day it closed. I know the chief that was there when it closed and he treated them very well. Over the years that site had spent very little money on the equipment apart from the rare replacement of the usual consumable parts. A great tribute to the Vic's in general.

Wales is very cold right now so a woolly jumper might come in handy!!

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What size lamps you running with... As I said before I've not seen any water cooled system for a long long time, West end excluded. Is it a tub behind the projector with a circulating pump or more elaborate? Vic 5's don't have any built in gate cooling, Vic 8's have a fan system just for the gate, so are you running big lamps, 3k and over?

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The ST-200 in the states will typically price out around a Christie AW-3. The Makeup table is a bit pricey though though they now have a Christie "knock-off" that is notably less expensive.

The FP-30D prices typically around a similarly equipped American machine.

One thing to remember when comparing the Kinoton stuff to American equipment is that the Europeans have always considered the pedestal as part of the projector and the lamphouse attaches to the projector.

So an FP-30D is the equivalent of a pedestal, reel arms, projector and soundhead. All you add is the appropriate sized lamphouse to finish the system. Automations and such can be mounted on the projector (rear) in their quasi-rack.

Kinoton America pushed for the PK series (Projector Head) to work with the American style of thinking...that is...everything is unto itself...so if you wanted a Brand XYZ console you could still use a Kinoton projector.

The FP-50 was also a thing primarily for the American market...the FP-50 would be the Kinoton projection mechanism (essentially the guts of the FP-30) mounted to a Kinoton Console.

As to parts prices...I have never found Kinoton to be that expensive to keep running (they are mostly in special venue situations due to their bells and whistles plus 16mm capability for us). On a "D" series, I'd be willing to wager that the cost of operation is less that just about any other machine out there that is made today. Now a Simplex XL on an SH-10XX soundhead with a semi-competent operator that keeps oil in them is by far the cheapest projector to keep running.

The Cinemeccanica, to me, seems rather expensive for repair parts (sprockets and such). Of the two, I'd take the V-8 over the V-5. I hate belts with a passion (be they on American machines, Italian machines or German machines). I've only met one pair of old V-8s that I thought put out a decent picture and never met a V-5 I liked.

I like Simplex and Kinoton, but that isn't any big secret.

Steve