Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Simplex 35 Flaring

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Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 01-17-2008, 03:46 AM:

Hi Guys
It's been a long time since my last post....hope you are all well!
I have a Simplex 35 that I can't seem to totally eliminate "shutter flare"........especially noticeable in the credits and at times during the show.It's not consistent in the amount and repetitiveness of the flare.
This is a machine that probably should have been totally rebuilt or replaced some time ago.
All bearings are good,shutter is tight on the shaft.
This machine has always been noisier than my other 35's and it also chews out the bush in the "idler gear"(G2086 Drive kit)a lot quicker than my other machines.
Cheers Ian

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-17-2008, 04:08 AM:

do you have the proper clearance between the G-1826 idler gear, and the P-1539 drive gear - about paper thickness between the teeth?

Take the idler gear assembly off and spin the drive gear and see if there is any unusual turning resistance by hand.

Also, makes me wonder if the vertical shaft bracket assembly in the back side is out of alignment where not all of the gears are meshed correctly with the gears that is mounted on the vertical shaft. (sounds like a horrible film jam has knocked everything out of wack in the gear side of the unit..but didn't take out any fibre gears....and if it did, the vertical unit wasn't aligned back in correctly)

You loosen all five allen headbolts and move the assembly around to where all gear contact is close to same.

some things to chek out .. good luck-Monte

Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 01-17-2008, 06:11 AM:

Hi Monte,
I've never heard of the paper thickness requirement between the gears.
Do you just set the two gears with the paper in between....tighten the bracket then remove the paper?
I've rebuilt and installed this assembly on other machines without any problem....and their still running fine!
For some reason on this machine I can reduce the noise in this drive area by placing a thin piece of plastic between the idler gear bracket(right hand end) and the projector body and then tighten down the bracket.
I will check the drive gear as you suggest.
I think you could be right about the vertical shaft.
I paid experienced techs a lot of money to work on this machine a few years ago and still ended up with a noisy projector.
I've had the shafts out of it several times to check/replace bearings etc and it is the most difficult part to align the vertical shaft for minimum noise and smooth running.Any tips on this alignment would be appreciated.
I'm at the point where I feel I should just bite the bullet and get new complete shafts(including the "Main Drive Assy") from Ed Wolk.This machine has done a huge amount of work and is tired!
Cheers Ian

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 01-17-2008, 06:20 AM:

This is unrelated to the ghosting problem, but check to make sure you have the proper (idler) drive gear. While the gear for an RCA soundhead will work with an SH-1000 (and vice-versa), they're not exactly the same and will be noisy when mis-matched.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-17-2008, 07:48 AM:

quote: Ian Bailey
This is a machine that probably should have been totally rebuilt or replaced some time ago.

Yep! Sounds like you hit the nail on the head... If you rebuild it have the main casting powder coated... it'll reduce the amount of oil seepage tremendously.

RE: the intermediate drive gear on the non-operating side... Using the RCA version not only causes more "gear noise" but it also will wear out much quicker.

I am so-so about Wolk parts... they are still touch and go as for quality and consistancy. Consider LaVezzi Parts instead since they make almost all of the internal parts for Strong for that Simplex and so on. Their quality can't be beat...

Mark

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 01-17-2008, 12:35 PM:

Aligning the vertical shaft:
There are 2 fixed gears that this shaft has to meet: the bottom drive and the intermittent. The shutter shaft can be moved a bit but this is not an easy job, so unless these three are way off find a compromise, then adjust the sprocket assemblies to suit.
1 - Loosen the upper and lower sprocket support mounting screws (from the film side). Move both of these away from the main shaft, increasing the distance between the drive gears - the top one towards the screen and the bottom one towards the lamphouse.
2 - loosen the vertical shaft bracket screws but leave them finger tightish. Now shift the bracket until the bottom drive gear, shutter drive gear, and intermittent drive gear are all meshing properly with just a tiny bit of "slop" between each gear pair - they shouldn't be mashed tight together but shouldn't have a lot of backlash either. Tighten the mounting screws and check the mesh through several revolutions of the main shaft - a slight bend in the shaft or out-of-round gears can bind the whole works up considerable, you want smooth running and should accept a slightly loose mesh at some point rather than a too-snug mesh. You may find that the three gears are not exactly aligned to mesh equally; Either the intermittent drive gear mesh is too loose or too tight when the drive and shutter gears are correct. So set it up so the tight one(s) are right and the other(s) are a bit loose, again you want to avoid a tight mesh.
The only way to adjust this for "perfect" mesh on all three gears is to mive the compensator (and shutter drive gear). I won't describe moving the compensator as this should be done on a bench by an experienced tech.
Once you have these three gears as you want them, move the sprocket assemblies to get a good mesh on their gears. This is pretty easy and again you want just noticeable backlash through several turns. The gear clearance tends to change when you tighten the mounting screws so check and adjust as required after tightening.
While you have the back off, have a look at what the shutter adjusting knob does. Set it so it's in the middle of the range and then adjust the shutter timing by loosening the shutter hub and turning the shutter plate on the shaft as described in the XL manual. Then you'll have the maximum adjustment available to get rid of ghosting.
If you can't get rid of shutter ghosting, and it seems stable and the knob will take it from top to bottom screen... you may have a "drive-in" shutter. The standard shutter should have 90 degree sections, a drive-in one has larger open sections than metal sections.

Posted by Eric Robinson (Member # 2966) on 01-17-2008, 02:52 PM:

This doesn't always work, but you could try removing one gear at a time that interacts with the main vertical shaft to see if any one of those individual components are creating the problem. This is much easier to do on a Century though.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-17-2008, 07:42 PM:

quote: Eric Robinson
This is much easier to do on a Century though.

..which is baby stuff since you're dealing with a different make of projector, no oil issues and shaft layout..no comparison.

Dave's way makes the most common sense in aligning that assembly since you don't want to take out those upper and lower sprocket assemblies since they've got oil seals on the backside that needs replaced if you do.

Ian, to find out if your vertical shaft is out of adjustment: with the back door off, wiggle each gear and see if you've got either none, a little, or a lot of play per each combination steel and fibre gear and if so, then you can see the pattern on how that assembly is aligned - correctly, or incorrectly.

(..side help here ... "Oh, on the paper thickness, you put a piece of paper inbetween the gears, tightened down the set, then roll the gears to get the paper out to get your proper teeth spacing between gear sets. ALSO, there is the possibility that the head and soundhead isn't sitting square on each other, and by loosening the holddown bolts, run the projector and 'hug' the head and see if you can tweak the head laterally to get the two gears in square - which would quiet gear noise down considerably.....")

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 01-17-2008, 08:00 PM:

Monte's last paragraph...that is my thought exactly. Louis

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-17-2008, 09:31 PM:

(...course, this same 'paper thickness' rule applys to those 1st generation CHR P-35 units that had the belt driven/gear drive setup for the intermittent assembly...)

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 01-21-2008, 12:30 AM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
Monte's last paragraph...that is my thought exactly.

Just be sure to wear a shirt you really dont care about. It is a simplex after all. [Big Grin]

Although in all seriousness, the drive in shutter idea is the first one that came to mind when i saw the topic of this thread.

JJ

Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 01-28-2008, 12:46 AM:

Thanks guys for all this great information...I've been away a while so haven't had time to get back into this one.There is certainly plenty to check before I call Ed Wolk or LaVezzi.
Cheers Ian.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-28-2008, 02:45 AM:

quote: Josh Jones
It is a Simplex after all..

They're NOT that all bad - if you know how to gasket the thing right, one can really minimize the oil problem these things are known to have - prob some goon puts way too much oil in the backside and blaming the machine for their dumb mistakes.