Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Is Singer a good brand of portable 16mm projector?

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Posted by Patrick Curran (Member # 9925) on 12-31-2017, 01:39 PM:

I have a Singer 16mm slot load projector that I’ve been using for the past year in various presentations. I’ve seen several users on various forums mention various opinions on them, but none of them clearly stated whether or not Singers were good or bad and why. I will note that I haven’t noticed much damage to films I own by using this projector. Excuse me if I sound unprofessional here, I am just largely getting into this interest as a whole and I’m not quite familiar with everything.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-31-2017, 04:28 PM:

Singer primarily makes sewing machines. At one point, they owned the Graflex line of 16mm projectors, which is what you have.

The short answer is that you could do worse. These are gentle enough on film (unlike the auto-load Bell and Howells), but aren't the best with damaged prints. Some of them use lamps that are NLA. Sound quality is not the best, but is not terrible, either.

Look at Elmo 16-CLs (with new rubber rollers and the later-style takeup mechanism), Eiki SSLs, or Kodak Pageants for higher-quality portable 16mm tungsten-lamp options. The manual-load Bell and Howells are fine, too, but most of those have a worm gear that goes bad and likely will need replacement. All of these will be gentle on film if well maintained.

Posted by Jason Withers (Member # 10325) on 01-10-2018, 02:27 PM:

Yes, I think they are pretty good projectors. I have the later variant, the Telex Instaload XL. As I understand, Telex Corporation bought the Singer educational line sometime in the early 80s, and started branding the former Singer 16mm projectors under the Telex name.

Anyways, the projector I have seems to be of very high quality. One thing I like about these projectors is the slot load system. It's similar to the Bell & Howell slot loaders and is a snap to route the film to the take-up reel. The projector transports the film very gently through the system and hasn't faltered yet. It came to me in dirty condition, so I cleaned up what I could. One minor issue I initially had was the volume control had a lot of static so I bought some Deoxit spray and it seemed to fix the problem. Overall, I'm happy with the projector and it projects a very steady image on the screen. My model is the basic model with just forward and reverse, but some models had a film counter and still operation as well as a speaker built into the cover. Mine just has the integrated dual speakers, but it is plenty loud. It does have an external jack so I am thinking you could use any speaker you wanted.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-12-2018, 08:28 PM:

They are the most difficult of all 16mm projectors to repair! I worked on the HS A-V squad and we had about 100 of those and the district office had a guy down stairs with all the factory tools to repair them. Other HIgh Schools in the district had them as well. They are easy to thread and can take a lot of punishment... but when one dies it's really a PIA.

Mark

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 01-12-2018, 11:24 PM:

I like the Kodak Pageant 16mm solid state amp projectors from the 70's. Very easy on film. Have a few models that have a bright lamp tungsten type bulb with a great adjustable sound amp. Holds large reels ok and very quite. Splices go through very good. The model is the Kodak 250S. This is my favorite 16mm film projector. The image looks so clear and clean. Have some zoom lenses and a few CinemaScope® ones. Love to collect various trailer reels and splice them all on one big 16mm 1 hour reel. Makes a great variety movie party on my large home screen.

Posted by Mike Blasko (Member # 3968) on 01-21-2018, 02:06 PM:

They are ok machines, but the previous posts are being kind on the sound. It’s awful in my opinion and the worst of any projector I’ve heard. The black XLs are ok, Jr the difference in an EIKI or Elmo is staggering.

I had one for a long time and had no issues (the rare xenon conversions) but the sound is what killed it.

Posted by Jason Withers (Member # 10325) on 01-22-2018, 09:34 PM:

I had one of those Eiki slot loaders, I think the SLLO model but I didn't find it sounded any better than the Telex or a Bell and Howell. The sound is only going to be but so good from a small integrated speaker system.