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Topic: Hello! and question about MICROCINE TAU 35MM PORTABLE
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 01-05-2008 05:24 AM
I have run one of these machines, it's a long time ago, but I think it fed clockwise, which is the more common arrangement over here. Many machines will feed either way, some will only work one way, or the other. Feeding anti-clockwise is the standard practice in America, where it seems to be almost universal. Most of the machines that I've seen feeding anti-clockwise over here were older American Simplexes, with spoolboxes and firetraps, designed for nitrate film.
When the feed spool is turning anti-clockwise how much tension is there on it? If there's a lot, then it's quite likely that the projector has been designed to be able to rewind on the machine, as many portables can, and it's in rewind mode. if there's not much, i.e. you can stop the feed spool turning with just a light touch from a finger, then it's probably just applying a bit of back tension to the spool, I've also seen this done, though a simple friction arrangement is much more common. Driving the feed spool backwards to apply tension is more common on tape recorders than on pojectors. In either of these two cases, the spool being driven anti-clockwise would indicate that it's intended to feed clockwise. Sorry, I missed one sentence of your post, you said that the machine can rewind.
If I remember correctly, this machine can take 6k spools, and it would be unusual with these, or anything smaller, for the feed spool to be driven forwards while the machine is running; it is sometimes done with much larger spools but the spool would be driven slower than it needs to turn. You say it is turning quickly, which seems to rule out this possibility anyway, so I would say one of the other two applies.
Check how much tension there is on the feed spool, check it with a spool, not by holding the spindle in your fingers. If there's a lot of tension then it sounds like the machine is trying to run forwards and rewind at the same time; this might be caused by something like a switch or relay sticking. if there's very little tension then the machine may just be intended to feed against that tension, though as I said it's not common on projectors. Either way, it sounds like it's designed to feed clockwise.
Can you post a better photo, or a drawing, of the symbols on the buttons; I can't make them out on your photo.
If you can't get it working, and nobody else can help then I could have a look, Oxfordshire isn't too far from me, and while I only ran one of these that we hired in for an event on one day, and it was quite some years ago now, seeing one again might jog some memories.
Do you have some old scrap film, a couple of trailers or something similar, that you can used to test the machine? Old triacetate film is better than modern polyester for this, as if anything goes wrong it will break before something else does.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 01-05-2008 07:12 AM
The speed that the spool turns at doesn't really indicate very much. When I was at primary school we had a Truvox tape recorder, was this the same Truvox that later made floor polishers I wonder, and if you pressed play with no tape in it, and disabled the cut-out, the feed spool would turn backwards at a very high speed, but there was very little torque there; just a light touch with a finger would stop it. You say the spool is difficult to slow down, so that seems to rule out the possibility that you projector is doing something similar.
It really does sound like it's trying to run and rewind at the same time. Do the buttons all feel and sound ok? Could there be anything mechanically wrong with the latching arrangement between them? Have a look at the switches themselves; is there any sign of wires having become detached, or shorted out? Are any of them sticking? Has the machine been out of use for some time?
I only ran a short of about fifteen minutes, several times during the day, so it was all on one spool; nothing was made up, and there were no changeovers. We only hired one machine. I spooled up from the core, and rewound, by hand not on the machine. Some portables can be used to make up prints on large spools, usually by winding onto the feed spool; you then swap the spools over to rewind. Sometimes hey use the normal rewind mode to do this, though this isn't ideal, as it's far too fast for inspection and making-up. Other machines have s slower make-up mode.
I can't remember the details of the machine, as I said, I only ran it for one day, and that would have been in the early to mid '80s, but If I could see some detailed pictures, or even the machine itself, it might jog my memory.
Though the mech can be similar, the film handling on portables is often very different to it is on cinema machines; most cinema machines don't rewind film for example, and they're not designed for making up prints (ok, the Fedi Solo was, but that's an exception) they're designed to be portable, and not require too much other equipment to be lugged around with them, so these functions tend to be built into the projector.
Feel free to e-mail me some pictures.
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