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Author
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Topic: Simplex sounding like a sewing machine
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Frank Angel
Film God
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/248b.jpg)
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-04-2007 06:50 AM
I get a call from the A/V guy at the museum where I was supposed to show two films yesterday saying that their service tech came in to replace the gate shoe spring which had broken last month (I had to run a show last time I was there using rubber bands to hold the assembly against the film. Anyway, the museum's A/V chap who ran the two prints during the week said he wanted to warn me that the good news was that the errant spring had been replaced, but now the machine makes a VERY loud noise when film is running thru it. He was not exagerating.
These are Strong Simplex 35s.
Upon arriving in the booth I gently turned the motor over -- nothing unusual. I run the motor, same thing, quite as a mouse. Then I thread a junk trailer reel and with the film in the machine, the noise is so loud we had to talk in loud voices to be heard only a few feet away from teach other. I checked out everything -- the shoe assembly and spring seem unremarkable -- springs giving same amount of pressure as the shoe on the "good" machine. The clack-clack which is in time with the intermittent is definately coming from the intermittant area, so I check the sprocket holes on the film that just ran thru -- nothing. Nothing torn, nothing nicked, and to top it all off, the picture is rock-steady on the screen. I mean, the noise is so loud that instinctively you would think the picture would be jumping wildly on the screen -- not so. The closest I can explain the noise would be like if you were running estar base film and you lost the loop and the film was slamming thru the shoe assembly.
At first I didn't want to run the show at all, but the A/V tech had already run both prints and after thorough inspection, no damage was visable at all. So, I ran the show with that machine clacking away. The pessimst in me was sure that at any moment the intermittent was just going to seize up, but as I said, other than the noise, nothing. And the most bizzare thing is, that with no film in the gate, the thing purred like a kitten.
Anyone have any idea what this could be? Oh...yeah, I swapped the shoe assembly with the other projector. Same noise, so it's nothing to do with the shoe assembly itself. What is even more scarey is the service tech left (without fixing it) saying that it's just a spring he needs to install in the shoe, which definately it is not.
If anyone has run across such a problem, I'd like to hear the solution. Oh yah, the noise is definately coming from the working side of the machine and there was no unusual vibration that synced with the sound of the clacking when I put my finger on any part of the head.
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Frank Angel
Film God
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/248b.jpg)
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-05-2007 09:56 AM
Ah HA! -- the OIL! Not that I am certain this's it, but what a coincidence....yesterday I noticed a can of Simplex oil was on the work bench and a water bottle filled with what I just assumed was used oil; I just figured that while he was replacing my rubber bands with a spring, he got ambitious and changed the oil. Who would have considered that he might have drained the oil but not replaced it???
So in other words, if there was is oil splash, the intermittent might run smoothly sans film, but with film in the gate, that puts enough resistance on the mechanism to cause it to whack out that noise. And that would make sense because the noise is in time with the pulldown. DAMN. If that's what's the problem, this tech guy is going to have allot a splainin to do. Pisses me off I didn't think of checking that. But then again, you see a bottle of used oil, you just figure a tech wouldn't forget the refilling step of that process, eh?
I hope no damange was done running it like that for a bit under 2 hours -- two shows on 2000ft reels, so at least it got a chance to cool down between reels. It's a good thing the intermittent did seize during the run. I will tell their A/V guy to check the spray first thing.
Thanks guys.
PS Dave, I don't know that the Simplex was designed by a guy who designed a sewing machine, but I don't think it's just a coincidence that there was a Singer Sewing Machine Company as well as a Singer 16mm projector. When you think about it, the movement of a sewing machine and the claw pull-down intermittent of a 16mm projector....pretty much both are in the same ball park. I wonder which one came first.
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