Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Need help with Eiki Elf projector

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Posted by Magdalena Agnieszka Boreysza (Member # 1947) on 10-13-2003, 05:03 AM:

The cafe/gallery at which I work has a 16mm projector and they've asked me to take care of it and show movies. The only experience I have is with 35mm projectors, so I would really appreciate any tips you might have as to how to tend to it (if anyone has a manual, that would be great), where to get extra parts, the best way to arrange the screenings, what kind of screen to get, where to get films....
This is an Eiki Elf NT-1 projector.

Can you help me?

Posted by Hugh McCullough (Member # 1542) on 10-13-2003, 05:50 AM:

If you send me your address I can mail a copy of the instruction manual for the Elf NT1 to you.

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 10-13-2003, 09:55 AM:

I'm out of my element with regards to 16mm distribution in Sweden--in the US it's getting to be a dead industry with only Swank and one or two other distributors still in business. Tell us a bit more about your cafe in terms of size, throw distance, available sound reinforcement, etc. and perhaps we can give you some tips. You might also try www.16mmfilms.com as a source of information. All the members there are 16mm collectors and some have a great deal of knowledge with regard to Eiki projectors, lenses, sound systems, etc. and would be glad to help you. In general, though, keep in mind that your NT-1 is a halogen projector which puts out only +/- 650 lumens with a three-bladed shutter. Unless you're planning to totally darken the room, which seems unlikely, screen size is going to be an issue. Xenon Eiki projectors are fairly readily available which put out 3-4 times this illumination and might be a better choice for achieving decent screen size. Putting aside the issue of legalities, however, for a small venue you might look into a DVD player and one of the many LCD projectors now available for $2000 US and under. Again, now knowing Swedish print availability, program material may be your biggest issue in 16mm. Good luck

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 10-13-2003, 11:51 AM:

All the manuals and lots more information are available at www.film-center.com

Posted by Magdalena Agnieszka Boreysza (Member # 1947) on 10-14-2003, 11:03 AM:

The cafe is basically a volunteer-based project, which means we don't really have the money to buy expensive equipment. I would really like to try and see what we can do with this projector. The space we have is pretty big (about 80 square metres) but we could just show the films in a corner. I don't know much about sound, but I think there's a sound system (normally used for concerts). Perhaps I could use that?
All though my official adress is in Sweden, I have actually recently moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, and that's where the cafe is located. So I'm trying to find 16mm films in the UK.

Posted by Lindsay Morris (Member # 1430) on 10-15-2003, 03:09 AM:

Magdelena,
The little Eiki NT are quite a good performer with many of them still in use in Australia doing 16mm shows for small towns, community groups and film societies.
Still a quite reasonable range of 16mm new releases here in Australia so many are still whirring along.
The NT has a 2 bladed shutter with quite a good light output and at 20 metre throw produces a picture 3.72m wide... that is assuming it has the standard 50mm lens they normally came equipped with.
You may be lucky and have a zoom lens fitted but these were quite rare due to the cost of the things.
In a reasonably dark area the image can be pushed to over 4m wide and still be bright enough for public exhibition... done plenty of that in the past here around the local halls before setting up an outdoor 35mm venue.
As to sound, the 12 watt amp in the Eiki is a bit small for large groups but if you can find a couple of 15 ohm 300mm (12") speakers and hook them up in parallel the Eiki will make quite a lot of noise for a reasonable sized group.
I used a line transformer (10k ohm - 10k ohm) to take the projector speaker output and feed that directly into a 30 watt stereo amp Line Input driving 2 sets of speakers set either side of the screen and the sound was magic. You must have some form of DC isolation between the projector amplifier output as there is DC on the output socket of the Eiki amps and if that is fed into the input of another amp unit you can get all sorts of problems... the least of which is "cooking" the Eiki amplifier.
In the outdoor I have a Bell & Howell 666 with a long play unit setup for the odd 16mm feature or short we screen and I feed that via a Line Transformer straight into the 35mm sound system Non Sync input. Works like a dream and best of all you have the tone controls active on the 16mm machine so any poor soundtracks can be coaxed to be a bit more intelligable.
I blow the 16mm up to just on 7.5m wide and if the print is good it looks almost as good as 35mm in WS which is just a whisker wider on our screen.
Lindsay