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Topic: Stupid "features" of cinema equipment

Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 09-17-2004 10:41 PM

The spring loaded guide roller on the FP 20s we've sold and service never had any issues (exact same at the FP30's spring loaded roller). On the 16mm side of a FP-28 was another story.

Were you running reels (never a problem) or platter (could be a problem but shouldn't...depending on take up tension).

Not to fear...Kionton now uses IR film sensors instead of mechanical sensors.

Steve

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Thomas Jonsson
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 216
From: Bromolla, Sweden
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 09-18-2004 05:51 AM

Thanks for the info about the Jerry Lewis cinemas.
I guess mr Lewis is/was as greedy as any other star.
I very much like the "actor" Jerry Lewis, but in
this case he was perhaps a "stupid feature" himself.

Did the Jerry Lewis Cinema Corp have special demands
on those theaters, regarding equipment etc, in the
same way THX has today?

Thomas

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 09-18-2004 10:38 AM

Jerry Lewis sold his name to the promotion group who developed the cinemas. They built or assisted the client in turn key cinema situations. The lack of proper training in the business and poor site locations doomed the company. Jerry Lewis personally received heat in the failures even though he had no control in the say of the operations. Later groups where formed such as TDI which did similar projects ( singles to "mega" 4 plexes ) but at least they made an attempt to train people. In the late 1970's I was involved in over a 100 of these cinemas....all using the same general blueprint and seven day install technic. All the cinemas where 196 seat, same equipment package. It was not unusual for us to re-route equipment shipments on the fly to another site if a location was not ready. I did so many of these that a couple of times I would walk into a projection booth and forget what town I was in [Confused]

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Will Kutler
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1506
From: Tucson, AZ, USA
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 09-18-2004 11:22 AM

The Jerry Lewis Cinema in Tucson survives to this day. It is now the site of "The Gaslight Theatre and Little Anthony's Diner".

The Gaslight Theatre is an emensly popular Vaudville style live theatre, and Little Anthony's is a '50s Style Diner. Bothe EXTREMELY popular Tucson landmarks!

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 09-18-2004 10:05 PM

Bio stuff about Lewis says he lost big time on the cinema chain or so he says.

ORC1000: The confusion may not be just from the model number. The manual itself refers to an "X1000" bulb. One might reasonably presume that's a 1000W bulb. But one would be wrong.

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Patrick de Groot
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 161
From: Sprang-Capelle, Netherlands
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-19-2004 05:14 AM

quote:

On my Kinotone FP-38D's there is a funky split guide roller just before the takeup

We have both types (spring/no-spring) of fail safes. Never had a problem as you described (platters). The only thing you must pay attention to is that you pull the knob on the end out (stretch the spring) after lacing so the film is laying between the "guides".
There is also a switch on the other side of the projector to bypass the split/takeup protection.

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Ian Joseph Parfrey
Film Handler

Posts: 56
From: Bollier Queensland Australia
Registered: Sep 2004

posted 09-19-2004 05:51 AM

I am sorry to hear that Mark Gulbrandson thinks I show ignorance in relation to the ORC Lamphouse. He suggests a virtual rebuild of the damn thing to get any reliability out of it. Well, I'm sorry Mark, but if it takes that much to get the things running reliably, then they're no good to start off with.
Whether they pushed the boundaries of semiconductor technology at the time makes no difference to me. I have to put up with the complaints when they stuff up. Its REAL hard to show ignorance with a piece equipment that you have worked with and repaired for the last 13 years!
Cheers.

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 09-19-2004 08:22 AM

quote:
On my Kinotone FP-38D's there is a funky split guide roller just before the takeups. It is spring loaded and had a reed switch to kill the projectors' motor if it sprang together. The idea is for the film under tension to keep it spread apart. A really piss-poor design for a failsafe, if you even farted near the damn thing it would kill the machine.

It was connected only for the first ten minutes of the facility's first test screening and has been disconnected since!!

We had those on many machines in multiplexes (with platters of course), never had a single problem. Maybe you should have invested more than 10 minutes learning how to thread them properly?
That reminds me of how I visited a location where the people who had installed the FP50Ds told me that the IR sensors didn't work, they stopped the film too often, so they had to disconnect them and install CE failsafes.
I told them that the failsafes often come from the factory set a little too sensitively, but that they could simply adjust the sensitivity with the little trimpot on top of the sensor.
Stunned silence.
Those aren't stupid features, but examples of how strange things people sometimes do simply they are not familiar with the equipment.
An actual stupid feature on older FP30s was a film break sensor above the gate whcih was a flimsy needle which sometimes got stuck and prevented the machine from starting. But they got rid of that.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-19-2004 09:47 AM

Steve said"The manual itself refers to an "X1000" bulb. One might reasonably presume that's a 1000W bulb. But one would be wrong."
Yes very wrong all one would have to do is read the bulbs specs and see it is a 700watt lamp
Ian said "I am sorry to hear that Mark Gulbrandson thinks I show ignorance in relation to the ORC Lamphouse. He suggests a virtual rebuild of the damn thing to get any reliability out of it. Well, I'm sorry Mark, but if it takes that much to get the things running reliably, then they're no good to start off with.
Whether they pushed the boundaries of semiconductor technology at the time makes no difference to me. I have to put up with the complaints when they stuff up. Its REAL hard to show ignorance with a piece equipment that you have worked with and repaired for the last 13 years!"

If oeprated with a 700watt lamp I have not had more than 10 board failures in many units installed up here with no extra venting or cooling
As soon as the bulb size was increased then the problems started

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-19-2004 10:48 AM

Well Ian, I don't know how you wold expect the caps in those things to last much past about 7 to 10 years and now many of those lamphouses are 30 plus years old! The older semis also had much more limited thermal cycling before failure as well.

Sorry Ian but its not much dam work to rebuild one! The main key to reliability with them are modern semis which are much hardier than they were 30 years ago and proper cooling which the internal top mounted blower never afforded. Its best to get rid of the air restricting top mounted blower and use a decent external exhaust system!

In my area there are a few 1000's still running and we have no problems with them at all. So for all the internal semis and caps it would cost you under 200.00 U.S. at list pricing! A total rebuild of one can be done in under 3 hours if you know how to approach it and have the necessary parts before hand. It just seems that you don't know how to approach it even after 13 years.... If you did yours wouldn't be giving you any trouble at all!

Mark @ CLACO

[ 09-19-2004, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: Mark Gulbrandsen ]

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Pete Naples
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1565
From: Dunfermline, Scotland
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 09-19-2004 04:00 PM

Agreed, the 1000B's I see are running 5-700w. I've modded the circuitry so the fans run as long as there is input power, and on memory I think I've seen 2 board failure and 1 diode go in ten years, I don't think that's too bad given the age of the equipment and the duty cycle asked of them.

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Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God

Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004

posted 09-19-2004 04:15 PM

quote: Michael Schaffer
We had those on many machines in multiplexes (with platters of course), never had a single problem. Maybe you should have invested more than 10 minutes learning how to thread them properly?

Maybe because we run 2k reels the takeups don't grab tension fast enough? The trouble was always at the start of a reel. And yes, I carefully set the proper takeup tension. And took the slack out of the film before starting. I think since platters have the additional length of film and the constant torque pulling fron the takeup platter you're not seeing this kind of problem.

Believe me, I went through every threading pattern possible and still had trouble with the things. The machines were test-run for a full day before opening night, both with test reels of trailers, etc. and a full feature (6 reels). The problem affected both machines.

And the ten minutes refers to the time into the test feature before I gave up on them. [Smile]

Even the original installer's tech didn't know how to thread them! (I had to show him.)

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Ron Yost
Master Film Handler

Posts: 344
From: Paso Robles, CA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 09-19-2004 04:42 PM

What about the wiring inside ORC 1000's? In mine (an early one-piece model, without a door in the front bulkhead) the insulation on the wiring is sooo dried-out and brittle-looking I'm afraid it's going to cause a fire. I can see thin cracks in the thick wires to the two big caps, but I don't see any bare wire through the insulation of the wires, or places where 'chunks' of it have fallen off or discolored too badly .. nothing 'burnt-looking' in other words. It just looks really dry and 'cooked', which it is, of course. [Eek!]

Is the wire 'safe', as long as one doesn't 'disturb' it too much? I haven't had to replace anything in it (except the bulb, of course), but it's getting harder to strike, so I fear the time is near for some attention. It had a set of diodes installed in 1989 .. from what I read on a service tag that's still inside.

It's in my personal 'screening room' and only sees very light use .. only a few hours a week or so.

Thank you!

Ron Yost

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Ian Joseph Parfrey
Film Handler

Posts: 56
From: Bollier Queensland Australia
Registered: Sep 2004

posted 09-19-2004 04:56 PM

Mark.
You make many good points and I do agree with you on the life expectancy of electros and semis. But at your own admission you state that...

"The main key to reliability with them are modern semis which are much hardier than they were 30 years ago and proper cooling which the internal top mounted blower never afforded. Its best to get rid of the air restricting top mounted blower and use a decent external exhaust system!"

Design fault or what?

This lamphouse is the 1600B 240 volt / 50 hz. model which the manual states ...
"The system is equipped with an 8 foot (2.4m) long 3 wire power cord. It is designed to operate with both the ORCON X-L 1000W and X-L1600W xenon bulbs"

We run the 1ks. With the aforementioned problems. Gordon is right on the money here.
Any takers for a 1.6K trial?
I can understand the philosophy behind these things but as this topic heading is "Stupid Features of Cinema Equipment", then I think that inadequate lamp cooling in a lamphouse is a stupid feature.

Cheers and Beers

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 09-19-2004 06:35 PM

I had a problem with a client blowing bulbs in a ORC lamphouse....finally visited the cinema and found them connected to a 20 foot / 9.44 meter exhaust pipe with only the internal top blower in use [Roll Eyes]

For the period, the ORC's blew the pants off of the then common vertical lamphouses + early Christie horizontals. We rebuilt many for export with new silicone / glass jacket high temperature wiring, blowers and reflectors.

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