Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Advice on FP30E sought

This is topic Advice on FP30E sought in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=011882

Posted by Fredrik Sandstrom (Member # 8171) on 10-05-2015, 05:50 AM:

I may have the opportunity to acquire a pair of FP30E projectors and need advice on a few points I do not immediately find answers to in the user manual.

These machines have the larger lamphouse, for bulbs up to 7000W, which is way more than I need. Can any smaller bulb be used in these? If not, what is the smallest?

I don't really want to install water cooling. The manual mentions this as an option but is not clear on when exactly it is needed. Is lamp wattage the only deciding factor, and if so, what is the largest one that can be used safely without water cooling?

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 10-05-2015, 07:07 AM:

You can use any size xenon lamp, although adapters will probably need to be made for them and a smaller rectifier will be required. Kinoton had lamp adapters for mid power lamps but not for really small ones, it was not expected that anyone would pay $$$ for a 7kW water cooled projector and stick a 1kW lamp into it. Light efficiency will be less than if using a small lamphouse, the big fella loses a bit to accommodate the large lamp envelope - light that should be collected goes through the mirror's big centre hole. If you don't have a 7kW lamp to measure you can get the physical dimensions from Osram's website (or Ushio's etc) if you know the lamp model previously used.
You want the new small lamp's arc located at the same place in the reflector as the 7kW lamp has its: the Z adjustment has fairly long travel so you don't have to be exact to a mm.

A 7kW lamp beams an astounding amount of heat at the gate - wood catches fire immediately if put in the beam. There is a filter glass in the LH but lots of IR still gets through. Without water cooling or a deafening blower, the gate would get hot enough to melt film quickly... maybe even melt itself.
The water cooled gate assembly doesn't have cooling fins so, without water, it is not equivalent to an air cooled one. Air cooled is usually OK to ~4kW, but for a dry water cooled gate I would try 2kW max and measure the gate temperature - after running with light for 30 minutes or so - and see if it's safe.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-05-2015, 07:54 AM:

The large lamphouse can run down to 2KW using "HS" style lamps. So any lamp that fits the 2KW HS size could be used (no, the 1600HS is NOT of the same lamp size despite the HS suffix).

As for water cooling. That was an option that would have been ordered with the projector, regardless of lamphouse. Kinoton's recommendation was for 4KW and up to use an air cooled water system (heat exchanger). We generally used them on 3KW systems because we wanted the gate area to stay as cool as possible and if 16mm was involved, we used water chillers instead of just heat exchangers.

The other key is the heat filter in the lamphouse...we always used heat filters regardless of lamphouse size...again, the goal is to keep the heat off of the film.

In any event, I'd plan on having 2KW of light. Depending on the vintage (pre 2007 or after) and if it is a 24/25fps machine versus a 10-30fps machine, your shutter efficiency could also affect light output (different shutter blades depending on how configured).

But here is a thought...see if Kinoton Digital Solutions can supply you with a "3-wing" shutter kit. It isn't really 3-wings but a firmware change that spins the shutter at 150% to simulate it. The "3-wing" shutter will knock the light down an essentially eliminate the flicker.

If your machine DOES have water cooling, you sort of should water cool it or the water cells will act light heat convectors and put heat on the gate (nothing to remove the heat)...again, check with KDS to see if you can get some conventional heat shields to run sans water.

Posted by Fredrik Sandstrom (Member # 8171) on 10-06-2015, 12:17 AM:

Many thanks for this valuable information!