Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Prevost P93 projectors

This is topic Prevost P93 projectors in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by German Marin (Member # 918) on 03-14-2003, 04:33 PM:

To all those that live in America, Who of you it does use Prevost P93 projectors? I'm one of "those"...

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 03-14-2003, 05:18 PM:

I think I had those in a theatre I serviced in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. They were the only ones I've ever seen. There are other installations, I know, but they are not too popular in this country.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 03-14-2003, 05:29 PM:

I have experience with a location that uses them and I have to say that I just hate, hate, HATE those projectors!

The good news is that they can run without major problems for a long, long time. I also liked those nice, big sprocket rollers and how easy it was to get the film loaded into the gate.

The romance ended when I started to encounter trouble with one of those units...

Metric screws and lots of fiddly little bit parts. Jeez!

I also didn't appreciate discovering (the hard way) that the parts are not uniform -- I've had problems with motors and intermittents of slightly different design from one machine to the next. I had one P93 down for about about a year or so because the intermittent was different from the kind they were sending out.

The framing on all of them kept coming loose and it was a real pain to tighten them back up again because you have to go and remove all the guts 'n' gears and things to fasten down these two (or three?) teeny tiny allen screws.

I used to LOVE those machines. But, now...Ugh! Don't get me started on how much I hate these machines!

One last note: I could be off my rocker and blinded by my hatred, but I remember measuring this. IIRC, the scanner of the built-in sound head was too close to the gate, so it's impossible to get proper lip-sync. It is off by about 4 whole frames, maybe even more.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 03-14-2003, 05:33 PM:

Ahh, you should have puchased Kinoton FP30A....the Irem rectifier could have been under the lamphouse instead of behind. [Big Grin]

The P-93 soundhead is not that good and if you have the Japan laser modification...have fun; I think they recently did some changes this year. The mechanism is fine but there can be oil leak issues in the motor area.
Richard Fowler
Kinoton America Inc.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 03-14-2003, 05:35 PM:

Richard is correct about the oil leak. It didn't affect all the machines, but there was one that we had to buy a bucket for so we could return the oil into the projector...after loosening about a dozen allen screws (all metric, of course).

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 03-14-2003, 06:29 PM:

The Prevost P-60 and 70 units are common in parts of Latin America and are tanks, the newer product will have less of a legacy.
Richard Fowler
Kinoton America Inc.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-14-2003, 07:17 PM:

Moving to Film Handlers' Forum.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 03-14-2003, 07:29 PM:

I have several of the P55's in service and the P70 and they were a well built and ruged machine and well built. They only leaked if on a steep rake As to the soundhead I found that Corning high vacum silcon greese was the best stuff to put on those felt pads in the holdback