quote: Mike Blakesley

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Use the Film-Tech Platter Ring and you'll never have that problem again. It's the best cheap insurance you can buy. I can't even tell you how much peace of mind it's given me.

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Or you can take some old film, and wrap it around the tail (tail wrap) loosely and it will never happen.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 08-03-2005, 01:33 PM:
 
I am sure steve g would agree the only fool proof way to prevent this type of mishap is to have two machines and run on reels
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-03-2005, 01:46 PM:
 
I had that happened as well with a LP-270 with "Mad Max". had two reels find its way to go under the deck. So, I took apart the brain to remove the brainplate, then removed the deck off the arm to where all I had to do was slide that mess off the arm. Then it was the fun chore of winding that mess back on a 6k reel. Luckilly, I only had to make 4 splices in that acetate print (who ever heard of poly film in 1987?).

What happened was the print shifted to where the magnet that keeps the end of the roll against the print was actally shoved to the edge of the deck and pushed off completely causing the end to start wrapping underneath.

What happened to that LP-270 that the magnet that swings over that reed switch device underneath came loose on the end of the payout arm causing the platter to operate irratically.

I had this happen using a AW-2 as well, but that was my fault due to tucking the end of the leader completely under the wind. Doing this, the end managed to snag itself on the inside of the payout roll and pulled the print completely off the deck by sending the film going under the deck. That was also quite a mess to clean up as well. But, I remembered my trick of removing the brain and deck to ease up film cleanup.

The irony of it all is that this second incident happened in a booth that had the CINE V-18 setup that has the BIG reel setup in fully operational condition. Just that the third movie was mounted on the big 13k reel, whereas this insident was with the 2nd movie.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-03-2005, 02:30 PM:
 
Are your print labeled with tape on the very last couple of feet of the tail leader, or do you place your label at least 5 feet back from the end of the tail? I see most of these incidents happen because people put a piece of tape to label the print at the absolute tail end, and that doesn't tuck well, plus it can cause the payout convolutions to snag as Monte described.

For those of you with SPECO platters, throw those stupid magnet things in the trash and go to your local pizza place and get some business card magnets. Lay the film flat down on the platter away from the film roll, then lay the business card magnet at a 90 degree angle to the tail of the film across it.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-04-2005, 04:18 AM:
 

quote: Brad Miller

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Lay the film flat down on the platter away from the film roll, then lay the business card magnet at a 90 degree angle to the tail of the film across it.

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quote: Mike Blakesley

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Use the Film-Tech Platter Ring and you'll never have that problem again. It's the best cheap insurance you can buy. I can't even tell you how much peace of mind it's given me.

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I agree, but a real no-cost way that works as close, is to cut off a good length old trailer that can be wrapped a length and a quarter around the print. Then take the end of that wrap and secure with the first wind of the wrap with a paper clip, or clothspin. End of the print isn't going anywhere, and when the print is on the other deck, all you have is just this ring of wrap on the previous deck.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Daniel Burns (Member # 1549) on 08-14-2005, 03:22 AM:
 
Monte L Fullmer, you said you had to take apart the brain plate, I'm curious, the Speeco platters I learned on at AMC had removable brains, but when I went to work at Cinemark they were all stationary in the platter deck. These problems were a lot easier to start to fix with it being removable. Are they most commonly non-removable?
 

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Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 08-14-2005, 04:05 AM:
 
Older model platters have the non-removable brains. I believe most platter models have kits to retrofit the brains to the removable variety.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-15-2005, 03:33 AM:
 
Yea, These Lp-270's were installed in this 4-plex back in 1979. Almost, some the first bunch of LP's to come out of the "Drive-In" company - long before the name change to SPECO.

Yea, that was fun that night disassembling that brain to get the deck off of the spindle to fix the mess that I had... (LOL)

Like STRONG's A-3 "Alpha" platters,which was a drastic revision of the old BALCO platters that came out in the mid to later 80's - with removable and updated brains with better microswitch layout, or a better constant payout called the phase control over the carbon switch.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-15-2005, 06:56 AM:
 
The next best cure for that is to splice up a ring of junk film thats just barely larger than the made up print itself and place it around the print. This way the tail can't become untucked.... I never liked tucking tails in anyway.... there's nothing definate about it staying tucked in. Sorry Monte, the clothes pin method is not a definate thing either, a ring of film should be spliced up for each print thats made up..... Only takes 30 seconds to do it.

Mark
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-15-2005, 01:21 PM:
 
Using the ring'o'film solution, I had a long print get thrown during the credits once. The ring did not prevent the throw (which was caused by static electricity) but did keep the film from going all over the place.
 

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Posted by Joseph Pandolfi (Member # 223) on 08-15-2005, 10:57 PM:
 
When I worked at my old theatre. One of the guys came up with an adjustable clear film belt made up of two strips of clear film spliced only on one side and we would have velcro tape to secure the ends of the belt. As films come and go the belt would be adjusted by undoing the splice and either take "in or out" on the shorter strip of the clear film. When it was the end of the show we would unfasten the velco loop and as you wind the tail on the platter place it three feet from the end, and then continue to wind the clear belt on and fasten the velco ends. And for those of you who like myself stick ID labels on the tail we would put them on the belt. Therefore the tail will never get damaged. We would have two different sizes made up. One for normal prints and the other for 3+ hour prints. Even though it saves the "tail wraps" we would use the "hula hoops" made by our former head man for long prints and prints the we payout from carboard "donuts" after being moved.
 

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Posted by Andy Summers (Member # 3207) on 08-15-2005, 10:58 PM:
 
Matt,

Good luck in getting it all back to the best possible working order, that’s one bird nest by the way you described it, is it a new film and would it be possible to get a replacement reel for the end credits.

And talking about end credits I all ways watch and listen to the fine score music on some films which tops it off, hope it doesn’t happen again to you.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-16-2005, 12:51 AM:
 
The "ring and clothspin" idea works great with the AW3 units since the three rollers on the brain actually creates the tension from brain to upper guidance (DTS loves this tension also so the film doesn't have any chance of slipping around the scanner drum...)roller, but with any other platter that has no tension from brain to upper roller, can be a bit of a problem since that section of film loves to sag some and can get hung up on that clothspin - especially if you have a mile of film from platter to machine and not using AW3(R) platters.

(you then can use a paper clip so nothing is poking up from the upper edge of the filmwind).

Then, the super trick of using the clear film with velcro connections on each end is the king of homemade wraps. Even the IMAX people love these wraps (using 70mm film) on their big films when spinning from the QTRU's.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-16-2005, 01:41 PM:
 
Those film or velcro wraps won't do anything but keep the tail from coming untucked. The safety rings prevent EVERYTHING from going wrong, except possibly a brain wrap. But as far as any other disaster, the safety rings stop it, and they're pretty cheap too. The next time you have a tossed print, assuming a medium sized crowd, you could've just bought safety rings with the money you lost from that show for the entire complex.

Then again some people can't do the math on why Christie bulbs even though they are more expensive to purchase, are actually cheaper to operate either.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-16-2005, 02:31 PM:
 
If any theatre has been having problems with wraps, they should invest into wrap detectors on their platter transports. That way they're not busting up films having those big "beehives" that gets built with those big wraps in as well having big downtimes and the lost revenue.

This is one of the biggest investments any "indie" or complex should be looking into.

-Monte
 

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