Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Simplex 35/70

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Posted by Chris Greenwell (Member # 1660) on 04-18-2003, 02:39 PM:

Just took over a booth, and it is equipped with Simplex 1050's but in its big house it has a Simplex 35/70, I was just wondering, is the 35/70 an odd ball projector?, Ive just never seen one around here..

Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 04-18-2003, 03:23 PM:

Hello Chris... I started a thread on this a while back: here.

It seems that Simplex 35/70s were a lot less popular than Century JJs.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 04-18-2003, 03:25 PM:

Cineplex bought many of those projectors for their 70MM houses.
They are very common. The Cineplex that I once worked was one of the few that did not get those Simplex model. I got a great pair
of DP75s. Mann Theatres had a early prototype Simplex 35/70 at the old Mann's Hollywood Theatre. That machine ate some much film. [Eek!]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-18-2003, 03:31 PM:

The Simplex 35/70 is a good machine. I don't think they were ever popular as others, but nevertheless they are a good machine. I base my opinion on the fact that I never heard anyone complain about them who have them.

However, I would guess some of the parts are very expensive as compared to the JJ. I could be wrong, though.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 04-18-2003, 04:14 PM:

Out of curiosity, why are people still interested in 70mm projectors when 70mm films are very infrequently screened except at selected venues such as the Cinerama Dome, Egyptian and a few others that have revival showings from time to time? The now defunt Cinerama Theatre in Honolulu used to have revival 70mm film festivals and they were somewhat popular. One was held only a few months before the theatre closed and the showings included "LAWRENCE OF ARABIA" and "THE WILD BUNCH". Others in the past featured "ICE STATION ZEBRA", "HELLY DOLLY" and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY". The sad truth about any effort for theatres to bring back these classics in 70mm is not going to succeed except in larger cities with enough film lovers that will be willing to drive miles to see a large format film.

-Claude

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-18-2003, 04:45 PM:

Because they are huge and intimidating.... [Big Grin]

Just like the broadcasting industry station owners. It is always "Who has the biggest Shvants" [Big Grin]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-18-2003, 10:59 PM:

Have personally owned one, and worked on many 35/70 X-L's. They are a pile of crap!!! First off, they don't even have 70mm sprockets, or a 70mm curved gate runner. The projector was originally hand made in the 50's for Panavision to run 65mm wide film (Camera 65 process). They were never updated to full 70mm width stuff. The second bad aspect if one is going to run alot of 70mm is that you will go through movements. They simply (pun intended) don't hold up under the strain of running 70mm, not even with the webbed star. No two machines can be made to give the same picture steadiness either...good luck on that! You might get one real good and then the other may jiggle, or shake a bit. If you run 70mm they have to be threaded to the exact perf, and loop size, or you'll crunch, or damage the film. Other 70mm projectors, even the JJ is at least a bit forgiving of this.....this is not a machine for the manager/operator type booth. I service a booth today that has a 35/70 XL still in place....I was told that the original Union Operator that was in charge of this booth refused to run any 70mm on it for fear of damaging the prints......and he was a VERY experienced operator with lots of 70mm under his belt.
Mark

P.S. Oops, forgot to mention that the penthouse is not driven either...I once sat through L.O.A. and listened to major wow in the sound near the end of each reel due to the inabilities of the penthouse to deal with things.....

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-18-2003, 11:16 PM:

quote:
Out of curiosity, why are people still interested in 70mm projectors

Because they're cool!! [Cool]

That's all the reason anyone needs! [Big Grin]

[Just giving you a hard time Claude]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-19-2003, 06:46 AM:

quote:
Out of curiosity, why are people still interested in 70mm projectors?

Because "The Splendor of 70mm" may come back again someday: [Smile]

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/pytlak/dec98.shtml

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/pytlak/march99.shtml

It's already something IMAX believes will happen for theatrical features, with their work on the DMR process and newly announced MPX theatres, using IMAX 15-perf 70mm prints to fill a 44 x 70 foot screen:

http://www.filmimaging.com/2003/03_mar/news/cw_imax_jr.htm

http://www.giantscreenbiz.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/gsb

And as often noted here, there are certainly hundreds of theatres ready to again show 5-perf 70mm prints, with relatively simple upgrades (70mm DTS) and equipment "tune-ups". Kodak makes 65mm and 70mm films, labs on three continents can print and process 70mm, and there is no longer a need for expensive mag striping and sounding. Many who care about presentation quality on big screens wish it would happen, and wishes sometimes do come true. [Cool]

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-19-2003, 09:37 AM:

The 35/70 simplex is all that bad there are worse out there
It is a defect having a pull through penthouse but we had a bunch of them in toronto and at the Eglinton they ran a lot of 70mm with no movement failures.
We ended up repositioning the damper arm in the penthouse and reverseing the balance flywheels and had no wow and flutter problems after that
I always liked the original penthouse design with the curved top so the magazine actually sat down into the penthouse

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-19-2003, 09:55 AM:

The wow problem was due to the theatre running double reels of 70mm..... For about the last 10 min of each double reel the wow was really bad. I doubt that any other good 70mm machine would have had it that bad. The XL penthouse is fine when running off platter, but a driven penthouse is far more desirable...and in the case of how much thay sold them for they should have been driven. I remember Howard Straight telling me that he gave the movement a life of 500 hours when running 70mm. After that many hours the parts of the movement went out of tolerance.
One thing I will mention is that they run 35mm really well.
Mark

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-19-2003, 10:01 AM:

The Simplex 35/70 is truely a 35mm projector trying to run 70mm. Virtually all of the parts are the same between the PR-3570 and the PR-1014. The sprocket shafts have extensions on them, not actually longer shafts.

As Mark said, everything is geared for 65mm not 70mm. The biggest problem is with the lateral guide roller on the trap...it will try to curl the film around the gate runners. I have taken a couple of coils off the spring to prevent that.

The "drag-through" penthouse is not a problem in of itself. If so, then all those Dolby Digital drag throughs would also be a problem....the difference...Simplex didn't get the tensioning right. They have a spring that pulls the lower tensioner down...that is exactly wrong. The upper tensioner will fall due to gravity and the coupling spring (between the tensioner). The lower roller needs a spring to exactly offset the force of gravity on the two rollers. At rest, the two rollers should balance and not tend in any direction.

On the flywheels (as Gordon pointed out)...one wants the most massive flywheel on the last stabilizer. This will set up a natural tension across the mag head. Another method is to make the earlier stabilizers smaller in diameter. This will also set up a natural tension. Furthermore, having the sabilizers with different diameters will prevent them from oscillating with each other they will be spinning at different speeds)...as Norelco (AA2) /Kinoton (FP-75E) still does to this day.

But back to the Simplex penthouse..there is more right there than wrong...fix the spring and get the flywheels right and you will have a stable 70mm reproduction.

However, you do not have any Mu-metal shield on the mag heads so hum from the changeover is a concern...I recommend DC changeover coils for them.

Of the many hours (much more than 500), I never had a Simplex 35/70 movement fail. In fact, I never had a Simplex movement fail on me ever. There is something to keeping the machine oiled with fresh oil (twice a year worked for me).

Steve

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-19-2003, 10:03 AM:

Is there any difference in the mechanism and/or movement on the 35/70 XL vs the 35mm-only machine?

EDIT: Looks like Steve has answered my question as I was posting.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-19-2003, 01:05 PM:

The type of wear that I've seen on most 35/70 XL movements is excessive wear to the bore for the starwheel. That necessitates replacement of the cover and starwheel when doing a rebuild. I rarely see this on even really old Simplex's that run only 35mm.
Mark