Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Frequency of oil changes?

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 08-23-2009, 09:07 AM:

Reading today's Warehouse addition, I notice that on page 6-3 of the FP20 manual (pdf page 37), it recommends regular oil changes every 250 hours.

In a busy theatre with 8-hour/day projector runs, that's once a month!
That seems...really frequent.

It makes me wonder how often you're supposed to change the oil on other projectors. For instance, on our Century C's, while we top the oil off regularly, it's pretty rare that our service tech actually drains and changes the oil (but we only run each changeover projector about 8 hours a week during most of the year, and more like 1 hr/wk over the summer); I can't remember the last time it happened...

Is there something special about the FP20 here?

Are we being really bad to our Century C's by not making sure their oil is drained and changed out every year or two?

Cue the amateur tribologists...

--jhawk

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-23-2009, 11:43 AM:

I've found every 500-hours to be sufficient.

As for your Centurys...You could be treating them better. What does it take to put in a rag/paper towel, remove the bottom case screw...watch the oil dribble out...and then take a few squirts to fill it back up?

Oil breaks down and in a typical projector, there is also no means for real cleaning of the oil. If you keep your oil changed regularly, you'll actually hear the projector run quieter.

On any rebuilds or new installations, we break in an oil machine by changing the oil pretty early...24 hours of run time...then 50 hours then 100 then 250 until we hit the 500-hour mark. Those machines rarely have any problems later in life...you get all of that machining particulate out of the system.

If you have a problem with frequent oil changes in your Century...consider using LaVezzi oil. It is a synthetic and won't breakdown like regular oils...it is better than typical Century oil too. In fact, we won't break intermittents in with it because they won't break in!

Steve