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Author Topic: Ballantyne VIP Projector Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-23-2003 07:35 PM                     Actually Phil, It is a true "wives tale". Ballantyne HAD a good projector before the Pro?-35 was designed. Ballantyne was the US distributor for Phillips projectors back in the late 60's early 70's till the Pro?-35 came out on the market. Ballantyne actually was the originator of the short lamphouse table for the DP-70 in its last years and manufactured the bases and other heavy parts that were un economical to ship over fomr Holland. Its just too bad that they didn't make the coupling out of bronze as Phillips did in the DP-75 and FP-20 machines. Had Ballantyne done that they would have had a pretty good machine. As you know though the better versions of the Pro?-35 had solid star shafts. I seem to remember on a trip to BL&S a couple of decades ago that Larry and Chapin were quite enamoured with the Pro?-35 for some reason or other.....? Mark  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 09-23-2003 07:50 PM                  Mark: Thanks for the info...I will file it away in my pea-brain! >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Ken Layton Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1452 From: Olympia, Wash. USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 09-23-2003 10:55 PM                     The VIP pedestals that Tom Moyer used in all his theaters here in the Pacific Northwest all had rewind on the machine. The takeup was this giant General Electric magnetic clutch motor.  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 09-23-2003 11:07 PM                    That's the type pedastale that we used too.  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-23-2003 11:47 PM                     I remember seeing a Simplex Super that wore the Ballentyne name in South Dakota years ago. Does anyone know about those machines? One feature the Pro-35 had was a special film trap which supposedly allowed the machine to run backwards. While running backwards, the film was basically crammed up through the film trap. The special intermittant sprocket shoe prevented the film form buckeling while running backwards. Those Pro-35's had two motors in them. There was a little difference in the pully ratios. These style machines were used with the Eprad Sword (I forgot what model) in the two-projector change-over system. When the change-over was made, the off-going machine would shut down and reverse direction and start running backwards to rewind that reel. One of the sales points was "Never needs rethreading." As long as the film trap was and kept properly adjusted, it seemed to work quite well. But if the film trap was in poor shape or mis-adjusted, a print could be destroyed very easily. Simplex 35 was experimenting with a reverse machine. I saw it at Show-West sometime in the 1990's. I never saw one since. What ever became of that idea?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-24-2003 09:45 AM                     George Kearasotes Theatres also has a number of the reversing Ballantynes. The Ballantyne that looked like a Super was an early projector they produced that was a knock off of the Regular Simplex. I believe there is something about this on the Strong web site historical area...... We have two reversing portable Simplex 35's that we rent out at CLACO. There is also a screening room rock and roll version of the Simplex 35 that is used in many studios. Mark  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 09-24-2003 10:55 AM                     The Ballentyne BW was the Wenzel clone of a Simplex Standard with some Super features.  |  IP: Logged Larry Shaw Expert Film Handler Posts: 238 From: Boston, MA, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 09-24-2003 11:02 AM                        Phil, I am looking at a production drawing of the DP-75 dated 4/63. In our library I found some very early Pro-35 manuals (the ones with the "puking dog" and "tightning a watch with a vise-grip" cartoons, and the boast that "all the designers are members of I.A.T.S.E.!"). The earliest date on any of the drawings I could find is 6/23/70. The earliest Pro-35 sales brochure I found is 10/78. As Mark said, if Ballantyne had not cheapened it so much, they would have had a pretty good machine. Philips/Kinoton certianly didn't invent everything, and not everything they did is perfect (EG: The gate design of the DP-75 is not their finest work), but they do IMHO have a track record second to none. Invent great sex? I think they're too serious. Like the ad: "Germans don't do romance; Germans do BEER!"  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 09-24-2003 12:14 PM                     I remember going to a technical meeting when the PRO-35 had been out for a couple of years in the 1970's. The main speaker, whose name I forgot, was the lead designer for the PRO and was also involved in the team that designed the XL while employed at General Precision....a small world.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-24-2003 01:11 PM                     Another down side to the Pro?-35 I forgot to mention is that the star is not hardened like that in a Simplex, Kinoton, or Century. The Pro?-35 star was patterened after the Brenkert star which is also not a hardened star but for what ever reason the Brenkert star fares better than the Pro?-35's does even after a major pile up. That has made for ALOT of broken tips on Pro?-35 starwheels after film pile ups. The webbed star has fared only a little better in that department. I overhauled a Pr0?-35 movement very recently that had a webbed star but one radius was slightly bent making the image bounce on screen. This one most assuredly experenced a film pile up. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-27-2003 04:40 PM                     Ed Nelson was the ehad engineer at ballantyne at the time and took most of the pro35 credit Ballantyne assembled most of the FP20's and DP75 building the coloumn in the US rather than shipping from holland the assembled machine so they had more than ample opportunity for industirial espionage Over all it was and is a workhorse machine  |  IP: Logged

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