Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Christie AW-3 Drive Roller Warning

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-31-2004, 03:52 PM:

This may have been mentioned here before but due to a recent problem with them I'm posting the following......

Anyone ordering drive rollers from Christie for the AW-3 beware of the latest incarnation of them. They are white in color and they are not concentric at all. Out of round would be more like it.....as though they missed the O.D. grinding stage when they were in production. We'll be sticking with the Wolk rollers at least till Christie gets this problem straightened out.
Another thing I noted that I have run into for the first time is that the tan Christie rollers are turning to goo where they are pressed(or molded) to the alumnium hub. I had to replace an entire multiplex worth of the tan ones due to the goo problem......

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-31-2004, 03:54 PM:

By "tan" do you mean "almost orange"? If so, yeah those were made out of silly putty and ALL have failed. I have had zero problems with the light tan/off white ones.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-31-2004, 04:04 PM:

I installed 12 of the off white ones yesterday that were shipped from Christie the day before and the latest batch is beyond awful. Vibration is so bad on makeup that one can only go to about 50% of M.U. speed without things shaking violently. Vibration at film startup is also much worse than normal. AW-3's never vibrate like this!! We have another batch comming into the shop next week and we'll check those for concentricity and get back here with the figures but for now I reccomend to stay away from them. We are able to do an O.D. grind on them in our shop so we can make them good but for those that can't [Eek!]

. Its obvious they were straight out of the mold.

BTW: I've never had a concentricity problem with the tan/orange rollers. The tan/orange ones at this theatre in Elko were 8 years old and not in bad shape except for the goo by the hub which would eventually cause the roller to release from the hub all together. Haven't seen any others get gooey like this and the air in Elko is very clean compared to here in SLC.

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 07-31-2004, 10:04 PM:

What?!? Those off white ones are absolute shit, too! Not only are they lobsided as Mark mentioned, but they also turn to complete goo.

We had a bunch of the brown ones and were beginning to replace the worst ones with these new white ones. After about a month, they turned to mush, and left all of the "silly putty" on the edge of the platter deck. This was happening on 3 of the 12 platter decks these were installed on.

We eventually re-re-replaced those with the best of the old ones we saved as spares. Getting that gunk off of the platter was quite a job, too, since it didn't want to come off, just smear.

=TMP=

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 07-31-2004, 10:13 PM:

Does Christie stamp the manufacture date on the rollers? All of mine used to have month/date markings...or are those the Wolk ones?

If man. date info is available for the current bad batch of rollers, it might be worth posting here.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 08-01-2004, 12:59 AM:

quote:
We had a bunch of the brown ones and were beginning to replace the worst ones with these new white ones. After about a month, they turned to mush, and left all of the "silly putty" on the edge of the platter deck....Getting that gunk off of the platter was quite a job, too, since it didn't want to come off, just smear.

That's exactly what happened at my theater, and one major reason why I did not choose Christie platters for my dream booth . I take it from this discussion there are other manufacturers of these rollers? Contact info, anyone?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-01-2004, 07:38 AM:

No reason not to use Christie platters as the Wolk rollers are totally trouble free and best of all they are round! We have some in the field that are two years old now. There was something stamped on them but I couldn't make it out......

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Bevan Wright (Member # 1884) on 08-01-2004, 08:47 AM:

MiT's drive wheels and motor control cards are compatible. Pictures and part numbers are on our products/accessories & spares page. Although completely compatible, improvements have been made including -

Motor Cards:
- Removing surface mount components (more serviceable)
- upgraded MOVs, caps and heatsinks

Drive Wheels:
- Natural rubber
- improved hub bonding surface and agent
- date stamped for traceability

[ 08-01-2004, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Bevan Wright ]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-01-2004, 09:52 AM:

Thanks Bevan,

I will have Vince order samples first thing Monday so we can check em out. Perhaps yours are a better alternative.

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 08-01-2004, 11:12 AM:

Bevan,

Yeah, thanks for the info! I assume all the other parts such as rollers are compatible with the Christies as well? Our complex is going to need to order about 85 new rollers to replace those horrible black ones.

Oh yeah -- why does everything on a Christie shed? The drive rollers, the black film rollers, platter deck surface.... [Confused]

=TMP=

Posted by Bevan Wright (Member # 1884) on 08-01-2004, 11:18 AM:

Our rollers will replace the black ones but you would also have to change the shafts... I'll upload a picture tomorrow and you will see why.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-01-2004, 12:36 PM:

We haven't had any problems with the Wolk Rollers either. There have been as many or more defective Christie drive wheels as good ones...enough is enough.

Steve

Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 08-01-2004, 01:06 PM:

Bevan....

Why mess with plastic rollers at all? With the small quantity you are producing, does a injection mold even pay for itself?

Would machined aluminum produce a better quality product, and be cheaper in the long run?

Posted by Bevan Wright (Member # 1884) on 08-03-2004, 09:10 AM:

Here is a picture of our roller, keeper and shaft.

Will, machining - even at a couple thousand a month, would be far more expensive. Plus if it was machined out of aluminum you would still need some sort of bearing. In our design, the bronze bearing holds the two halves of the roller together, allowing us to use a two piece mold and produce keepers and rollers at the same time.

Here is a picture of the other compatible parts.

Part Numbers:
C000002-001 Drive Wheel
C000003-001 Film retainer pad
A000007-001 Motor Control Card
C000105-001 Roller, flanged
C000105-002 Keeper roller
C000130-001 Shaft, roller

[ 08-03-2004, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Bevan Wright ]

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 08-03-2004, 11:51 AM:

quote: Bevan Wright
C000003-001 Film retainer pad

Better known as the world-famous Bevan-Poo™ [Smile]

-Aaron

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 08-03-2004, 12:39 PM:

I got slimed by some of those damned drive rollers.
More than I remember have been changed because of flat spots that developed over a period of use. Less than 160 hours in most cases and in the same house I had two on the same deck that turned to slime on the bottom of the disc.
I found a careful procedure of scraping and rubbing with acetone got it off however I was somewhat "slow" after all the fumes...Use only in a well ventilated area!

Posted by Bevan Wright (Member # 1884) on 08-03-2004, 02:16 PM:

Aaron, these are the BPII's. [Smile]

Taller, curved to match the film, recessed 'sticky' material (as to not stick to the film) and better bonding of the two materials.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-03-2004, 06:51 PM:

_______________________________________
"C000002-001 Drive Wheel"
_______________________________________
Looks exactly like the Wolk drive wheel. We've had the best luck with those so far. Some of ours in the field go back to when Wolk first released them over two years ago..... They don't develope flat spots either.
_______________________________________
"A000007-001 Motor Control Card"
_______________________________________

Looks nice. We should order a batch to send in to Christie with the next platter order we request!!

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Juan Urias (Member # 1990) on 08-05-2004, 04:23 PM:

mark,thanks for the compliments on the drivewheel.we have gotten great feed back for our drivewheels from other customers aswell.......JUAN

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-05-2004, 05:06 PM:

I think there's no question that we will be using them for a long time. Probably even on brand new AW-3's that are getting installed in the very near future. We intend to remove the white Christie rollers and return em for credit if they are really bad. Its funny because Christie had the roller thing down pat back in the 80's but chenged to another and presumably el-cheapo rubber compound. They used to last just fine.

Mark

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 08-06-2004, 02:01 AM:

One of our maintenance guys dug up two of the old Christie rollers. They are dark brown in color, and you can tell by the feel they are a totally different material than the white ones. Probablly natural rubber. I'm just glad to know there are other companies out there who still make rollers like that.