Dolby Analog Reader Retrofit

[Adam Liberman]

I'm looking for a retrofit kit to convert my Century R-5 reader to Dolby Stereo (Analog) Red LED. I've found these on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/127556373779
https://www.ebay.com/itm/195434746153
https://www.ebay.com/itm/274390832481

From what I surmise, BACP had different kits to retrofit different projectors. Would any of these work, or would I need to do too much mechanical alteration to make them fit? BACP vs KELMAR? Thanks.

[Dave Macaulay]

You noticed that different projectors use different kits but don't mention what you have? American projectors use pretty much the same kit as they had common designs with exciter lamps and lens tubes. European projectors are different.
Both types are good.

[Tj Hopland]

Your last one looks like it could be a Century one but in all the photos you don't get a good look at the LED bracket. One photo you can kinda see part of it but its mostly covered by the hand. Price seems way high to me but its not like you can just call up your local dealer and order a new one so I guess if you just wanna be done then maybe?? They didn't cost that much new.

Simplex and Century used the same lens part but what is different is the LED bracket. Simplex has a 3 hole bracket with holes close together at the top and one at the bottom, slight curve on one side. Century was a curved bracket with just 2 holes. BACP came later in the conversion game so there were more Component Engineering and Kelmar units around.

[Adam Liberman]

Your last one looks like it could be a Century one but in all the photos you don't get a good look at the LED bracket. One photo you can kinda see part of it but its mostly covered by the hand. Price seems way high to me but its not like you can just call up your local dealer and order a new one so I guess if you just wanna be done then maybe?? They didn't cost that much new.

Simplex and Century used the same lens part but what is different is the LED bracket. Simplex has a 3 hole bracket with holes close together at the top and one at the bottom, slight curve on one side. Century was a curved bracket with just 2 holes. BACP came later in the conversion game so there were more Component Engineering and Kelmar units around.

Thanks for the info! I pulled up the old BACP website on the Wayback Machine, and it does match the picture for the Century, although BACP shows what appears to be an aluminum spacer block over the lens tube that is not shown in the eBay listing (https://www.ebay.com/itm/274390832481).

https://web.archive.org/web/20111004224931/http://www.bacpinc.com/readersanalog.htm

The asking price of $1490 seems to be about 10x overpriced, based on other current and sold listings. I offered the seller $149, so I'll see how they respond!!

[Josh Jones]

The last analog only component engineering kits I bought for simplex were about $500 and that was two years ago. If the kit is new, the price is over double what it should be.

[Tj Hopland]

I'm not sure why that block is in that photo. My guess is the wrong photo got posted and that was maybe some sort of prototype or testing rig. That BACP page does show lots of the brackets so you can see the LED head part is basically the same its just the rest of the bracket that differs depending on the machine.

You can mix and match parts so if you found someone selling say a Kelmar century LED bracket assembly alone and you got a BACP Simplex kit cheap you could stick the Kelmar led with it. The actual LED element itself were all the same it just varied slightly how they were attached like soldered, socket, trimmed leads, that sort of thing.

[Adam Liberman]

I found another seller on eBay and got two BACP reader/LED sets for $140 each. The LEDs have the Simplex bracket so I'll need to mechanically modify them to fit the Century. Thanks all for advice.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I'm looking for a retrofit kit to convert my Century R-5 reader to Dolby Stereo (Analog) Red LED. I've found these on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/127556373779
https://www.ebay.com/itm/195434746153
https://www.ebay.com/itm/274390832481

From what I surmise, BACP had different kits to retrofit different projectors. Would any of these work, or would I need to do too much mechanical alteration to make them fit? BACP vs KELMAR? Thanks.

That first one is a reader for a Phillips FP-20...

[Josh Jones]

I found another seller on eBay and got two BACP reader/LED sets for $140 each. The LEDs have the Simplex bracket so I'll need to mechanically modify them to fit the Century. Thanks all for advice.

I have some BACP Century reverse scan kits that I pulled from a theater and have them for sale with a new LED installed for $200 plus shipping. PM me if your interested.

The BACP readers are tricky because the LED current is not adjustable. They give you two jumpers to cut to get more preamp gain when the LED starts to fade, but nothing else.