Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: New projectors in...now I want the manual.

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Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-19-2004, 07:52 PM:

This may be a stupid question, but we just recevied some new projectors (NEW!). Since I would like to download a manual for myself, I checked out the model. It shows that they are Simplex 35 Millenium. I didn't see any other model number on it. The only Simplex Millenium model that I see a manual for is the PR2000 and one with a TU2020/2030 turret. The pictures look similar to the actual projector, but since they are still wrapped in plastic, I couldn't tell for sure. Anyone know which manual would be correct..if any? Also, I'd be interested in hearing opinions about these units. Good, bad or other. Thanks!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2004, 08:12 PM:

Should've bought Kinoton. [Frown]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-19-2004, 08:23 PM:

I disagree with Brad.... [thumbsdown]

Kinotons are great projectors but buying a Kinoton does not solve all things wrong with all the other machines out there... you still have VERY high parts costs and plastic runners and skates to replace every so often [Roll Eyes]

. Nothing wrong with a Simplex in my book... There are good and bad points to every machine out there. I'm surprised Brad didn't say you should have put in all JJ's [Confused]

. I thought that was his favorite machine... and there are many available very cheap right now. The JJ is just as good on screen as a Kinoton and better than a Simplex, but the Simplex is the more reliable if properly maintained. Trade offs on everything!

About the manual... Call Strong and make them send you a copy of the manual in the binder!! If these just came from the factory there should have been a binder with each new machine! If you need theor toll free number just send me an e-mail.

BTW: If it were my choice I would say put in all Phillips FP-56's as it is THE finest 35mm projector ever made! The only drawback is that it has not been made since the late 50's.

Mark

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-19-2004, 08:24 PM:

They actually wanted more Christies, but apparently Christie seems to be going digital so they went for the Simplex.

Also curious in case anyone knows....

Is there a big difference between the M35GP (Christie) and the P35GP? We have the M, but I only find manuals for the P version. Just curious if anyone knows the difference.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-19-2004, 08:29 PM:

The latest Christie is actually VERY good. The P35-GP is about to be discontinued. In the new machine they switched over to round tooth timming belt drive, eliminated the double sided belt and had the pulleys hard coat anodized and then teflon coated. Great idea! I suggested this to them about 6 years ago.... This is the Christie with only one lower sprocket. This model also works exceedingly well with basement digital readers.

If Christie ever went to just selling Digital they would go out of buisness in less than 6 months...

Mark

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2004, 09:04 PM:

Mark, have you seen the current level of quality coming out of Strong lately on new machines? And yes I do like the Century JJ quite a bit, but I wouldn't want one coming off the assembly line today.

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-19-2004, 09:19 PM:

So the M version of the Christie is the newer model? I would have thought P would be the newer model..shows what I know.

I'm sure that a manual showed up with the Simplex projectors, but I dont know if its buried somewhere in the plastic wrap, or if it has been taken and stored away somewhere. Eitherway, I wanted a copy for myself so I don't have to hunt anyone down when I need to look something up. Where would I look for an exact model number? Or does Simplex only make one version of the Millenium?

Posted by Stephen Jones (Member # 16) on 05-19-2004, 09:26 PM:

I have found parts for Kinotons very reasonable and no more expensive than parts for other projectors.As for the nylon runner strips they are far better than steel or bands and last just as well as they are reversable and the skate also lasts well.Have just replaced all 8 of mine after 2 yrs.The nylon runners and skate are very gentle on film and less abbrasive on the SR.D track as well as running cooler.

[beer]

Steve

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-19-2004, 10:42 PM:

Steven,
Pricing all depends on how well your currency converts over and the duty rate charged. Shipping/crating also affects the end price to a latge extent and you pay for it all! We quoted a Kinoton Sidewinder not too long ago and the shipping/crating/etc added another 2500.00 to the price! In the U.S. German made goods tend to be very high priced as is Italian made stuff. A 35mm Cinemecannica gate plate cost us about 1100.00 U.S.. While the Kinoton runners may be inexpensive try replacing a Kinoton intermittent, or the Pabst outer rotor motor sometime... then you'll find out what the word expensive means.

We have a fair number of Ernamans around this area and they have been pretty darn reliable except for the motor which is identical to the one Kinoton uses.... The replacement Ernamann motor costs us slightly less than $1000 U.S. to purchase. While the motor on the Simplex, which is better built, and more durable, costs us a third of the Ernamann motor. This is but one example. I'm not knocking the Kinoton in any way in regards to quality on screen, just in its high parts cost... and there are U.S. made projectors that do just as good on screen as the Kinoton does.
BTW: Take the skate on the Kinoton and the skate on the Simplex... I don't know what the Kinoton skate costs today as I have not bought one for about 15 years, but I bet its at least as much as the Simplex skate...which costs around 80.00 to buy but can last 10 to 15 years before there is appreciable wear... its gate bands can last as long as two years if not run with undue tension, ditto on the Century machines. Again its all tradeoffs, but theatre owners also need to be concious of overall upkeep and maintainance costs to stay afloat.

Mark

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-19-2004, 11:35 PM:

.....but what about my original question??

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 05-20-2004, 12:19 AM:

You should find the model info on the side of the shutter guard and/or on the front of the turret control cabinet. You can start out by reading the manuals available here or on the Strong website. The models are all not that different. The main difference between recent and older models is in the gate/aperture changer area.

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 05-20-2004, 12:34 AM:

The PR-2000 is the Millenium.

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 05-20-2004, 01:24 AM:

...and thats the ONLY Millenium? What about the manual for the one with the turret? Whats the difference there? I'm just to new to these to know the difference. Thanks for the reply!!

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 05-20-2004, 02:27 AM:

Ok, I have to step in here and say something. There is nothing wrong with simplex? Oh, where to begin. How about the the gate that you cant get in to clean (THAT was a great idea), poorly engineered movments that die in 3 years (We've got two of them that sound a bit like rock grinders on any given day). Hell yeah, nothing wrong with a simplex........

I rest my case.

Oh yeah, I forgot the turrets that suck ass...

JJ

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-20-2004, 03:22 AM:

Josh, you should see a couple of the local "all-Strong" theaters that have only put 2-3 years on their equipment that are falling apart...and not from abuse. Factory new Century intermittents that sound like 5 guys each armed with 2 hammers banging on a Strong platter deck as fast as they can is a delightful sound, but one I am told "will go away with time". I am also quite fond of the Highlight 2 ignitors that die within 6 months time from brand new. Did you say turret? Let's NOT go there! How about we talk about their lovely platters?

With the new equipment choices that are available TODAY, they should've bought Kinoton.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 05-20-2004, 03:34 AM:

See, that`s what I have been saying all the time.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-20-2004, 03:37 AM:

Don't turn my words around now Michael. I know where you're going to try and take this. I still don't like Kinoton's platters due to simple design faults that could be easily corrected, but haven't been. Their projectors are magnificent though. That's what I am praising.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 05-20-2004, 03:45 AM:

I just couldn`t resist!!!
I don`t have any major problems with Strong projector heads, but I have suffered a lot recently (and increasingly often it seems) from the obvious complete lack of quality control at the factory. Incomplete part shipments (but not listed as backorder on the invoice, no - they simply forgot to put all the parts in), wrong parts, switchers completely dead out of the box. In one case they even managed to send us 3 (in words: three) wrong switchers in a series.
I don`t understand why they do this. It would be much simpler to just send an email "please don`t buy our products anymore in the future".

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-20-2004, 07:53 AM:

I most certainly agree with Brad about the Century stuff being made today but not about the Simplex. I have prety much zero trouble with new Simplex's. I also can't kock the P35GP too much excepf to its constant shedding problem... The new P35 is much better in all aspects.

However if this is one of Brads customers then he should take it on himself when doing servcie to replace the worn cam pins which are usually the cause of the noise! Its but a 15 min. job to change one and the pin is less than 10 dollars. I've even removed then turned them around and used the other end.....

Alot of the Century's problem is cause of poor quality parts and poor maintainance during use. Synthetic oil will drastically extend the life of a Century movement.. Which by the way is only rated at 5 years by LaVezzi if runs 10 hours a day. Amazingly Phillips had advertised tolerances of 1 micron in their manufactured intermittent parts which is nothing short of amazing. Now 1 micron equals 1/25,000 of an inch! The best that the U.S. manufacturers could ever get to was .001". So the Phillips folks did almost three tmes better in the tolerance department than we've ever done. Here is an interesting comparison chart....

Postage Stamp, 1 inch high 25,400 microns
Eye of a Needle 1,230 microns
Human Hair 40 to 300 microns
Oil Smoke 0.03 to 1 micron
Fertilizer 10 to 1000 microns
Tobacco Smoke 0.01 to 1 microns
Coal Dust 1 to 100 microns
Beach Sand 100 to 2000 microns
Mold Spores 10 to 30 microns
Pollens 10 to 1000 microns
Typical Atmospheric Dust 0.001 to 30 microns

Mark

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 05-20-2004, 09:09 AM:

I had a former customer convert to an all Strong package for new locations which now equal 20% of their circuit...their head tech tells me he spends 75% of his time repairing this 20%. [Frown]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-20-2004, 09:24 AM:

Is this their new stuff, or are you guys down on the whole line? I have Century and Strong stuff all over the place. All of it looks great, works great and is very reliable.

I've had more trouble lately with DA20 power supplies and scratchy amplifier pots than I've had with Century and Strong projectors over the past (@#$*) years!

It's not mine, so I don't take credit (or blame!), but there's a "C" setup in the town I grew up in. It was installed in 1947. As far as I know, the owner has always used 30wt non-detergent automotive oil in the intermittents, both of which run quiet & cool, and have never been rebuilt. Aside from cleaning, nobody digs into these machines much because the screen image is rock solid.

So there! [Razz]

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 05-20-2004, 01:14 PM:

Oh its the modern stuff I dont like. their old stuff was built like a brick, good stuff.

Josh

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-20-2004, 02:31 PM:

Mark, you should know better. The reason why people buy Strong packages these days more often than not is price. It's cheap, and you get what you pay for. With that in mind, if the owners bought Strong in the first place to save every penny they could, you must be dreaming if you think they will pay for any part that isn't absolutely, absolutely necessary to throw some kind of image on the screen. That's not how it works.

Jack, yeah the old stuff is reliable. It's the product over the last several years that is [puke]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-20-2004, 02:44 PM:

When did Strong's quality control start going to hell?

The newest Simplex that I have used was built in 1998 and the newest Century was built in 1995. Both are fine (though the Century has a steadier picture). Maybe not up to the standards of the 1940s through the 1960s, but still perfectly good machines.

As for Kinoton, I was under the impression that the PK-60 was price competitive with Strong's offerings. Has this changed recently?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-20-2004, 02:52 PM:

We've been very satisfied with Century projectors that have been running in our screening rooms, one pair from 1973, and another from 1992. Another room has a pair of Simplex Studio projectors from 1996 that delivers excellent image quality. Our Digital Cinema development group recently purchased Kinoton.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 05-20-2004, 03:16 PM:

Strong's cinema products QC started to go South about 1997-ish when they thought making chicken fryers was more profitable than film equipment.

I agree with most here, their last several years of film "equipment" is pure crap. And it hasn't improved. Too bad the "powers" in Omaha don't clean house.

I LUV my 1986 Simplex! [Smile]

>>> Phil

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 05-20-2004, 05:54 PM:

Personally I have always liekd the Kinoton platter as it stands and those who have them never have complained
Also the Kinoton parts are not very over priced but quiet reasonable and not requireing all that frequent replacement

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-20-2004, 07:32 PM:

"Mark, you should know better."
_________________________________________________

Brad,
Believe me I do not and never have sold a Strong, Christie, or any other single manufacturer package nor would I ever. In fact there were magazine articles written about my old company BECAUSE WE DIDN'T sell packages from any one vendor.... many thought that was odd! Just carefully engineered booths from an array of vendors equipment offerings.
I can honestly say too that CLACO has also never sold a one source package to anyone.

I do however like the Simplex Projector,and the Storng/Eprad automation.... No problems with any of them at all. Ditto with Christies projectors if our customers follow my reccomended maintainance on them.

Phil.... You're right on! Storng does need to clean house big time in the engineering division at least and get in some fresh new minds and bodies just like Christie did. You shoulda been at Showest to see the Apogee. All I can say is that its Rube Goldberg's Apogee in achievement... So many important things left out that could have been included to set some precedence, and a cluster f#&k of a sound head on the dam thing, the machine also has the smallest-tightest loop in the universe comming out of the intermittent sprocket. The biggest deal in projectors at Showest was really the new Christie which is very, very well done!

Mark

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 05-20-2004, 08:58 PM:

Kinoton , Ernamann and Cinemecanica all produce vastly superior and cost effective machines than any of the north american builders do and all strong and christie have done has try to catch up [Smile]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-20-2004, 09:08 PM:

Gord, I won't argue with the "vastly superior" part but I will with the cost effectiveness part........ Conversion shown at todays exchange rate......

100.00 Canada Dollars = 61.0094 EUR

If you think this is cost effective then you need to go refigure!!

Its actually a tiny bit more cost effective, by about 23.00, to buy the Euro with the U.S. dollar... but I still wouldn't call this very cost effective either.....

100.00 United States Dollars = 83.5736 EUR

No matter what you're paying ALOT MORE when bying European products with either the Canadian or the U.S. dollar. Of course there are still import dutys and transport costs on top of the money you loose just by purchasing these goods..... Thats why that Ernamann motor costs 1000.00 U.S.

Mark

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 05-20-2004, 10:05 PM:

We have several PR1060's, about 5-8 years old which are very reliable. They also receive next to no maintaince.