DP70 intermittent unit

[Sigurd Wik]

Hi,

Wonder if anyone has ever opened a DP70 intermittent unit? I have a spare and looking for ways to do it but it halts by the fly wheel. There are pinions and screws behind the fly wheel that needs to losen to open it, but can't see if the fly wheel should come off the shaft by twisting or pulling or other means.

And on a similar note, anyone know of spare parts available for the DP70s? Intermittent sprocket wheel is top of the list.

Sigurd

[Leo Enticknap]

Rosbeek Techniek in The Netherlands were offering some parts. However, their website appears not to have been updated in the last two years, and Mr. Rosbeek passed away during that time. I don't know if the company is still in business.

Towards the end of my time with the American Cinematheque, we were on the lookout for sprocket drums. The 35mm teeth on ours had worn a lot on both sides (they'd already been rotated), but we were having no luck finding new ones.

[Sigurd Wik]

Thanks. Yes I asked Rosbeek some years before he passed, he provided me with his modified DP70 film gate.

I pulled a fairly good sprocket wheel from a DP75, but always interested in more to keep the DP70s going for as long as possible.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Thanks. Yes I asked Rosbeek some years before he passed, he provided me with his modified DP70 film gate.

I pulled a fairly good sprocket wheel from a DP75, but always interested in more to keep the DP70s going for as long as possible.

You could try Claco Equipment & Service In Salt Lake City.,They used to have a lot of DP-70 stuff... just not still sure they do. When I worked there we restored close to 50 DP-70. A number of years back I had one of the DP-70 that was in the Seattle Cinerama Theater. Am pretty sure they had Jet Arcs in that booth, and both projectors were set up with Cinefocus. Sadly, the pother projector was dropped getting it out of the building, and the main casting broke into a number of pieces.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Here are a few specialty things we did to DP-70's. The three phase direct drive motor was set up via a special controller to stop when the film ran out and then it jogged the projector to the thread position.. Also, the built in DTS reader.

[John Eickhof]

boy i would bet randys looking back now at all the money he spent on the couple dozen or mor dp projectors only to have dc come in...I went to casper and hauled a van load of dp stuff to sam chavez after he went dc...

[Sam Chavez]

And Jess Daily bought four of Randy's machines and had me put them back to stock (more like a resto-mod) with 70mm six track mag soundheads. They run variable speed up to 30FPS. Boston Light and Sound still has sprockets and various parts and I have a few parts left over from the project as well.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Actually Westates had about the same number of DP-70 amongst their theaters. But Megaplex bought Westates out after the owner passed away. Megaplex for some reason really hated DP-70's... probably because they didn't understand them. They actually hated them so much that one of their Booth Monkees forced the Gate open on one while it was running. Not sure what that cost to repair because I did not do any of the billing, but I spent two days repairing it. Most fiber gears were gone, the intermittent was trashed, it folded up the shutter blade and did other damage in the gate area, where the shutter went through the cooling plate water loop. I had to take all shafts back to the shop and check them on the granite plate using v-blocks and a dial indicator, I seem to remember the shutter shaft being bent too. When they converted to digital I think they all went in the tip...

[Sigurd Wik]

Thanks for help and tip about Claco and BLS, I'll give them a call. Is intermittent sprocket among the parts you have, Sam?

[Sam Chavez]

I believe I have one or two 35/70 sprockets for the DP70. I will check the warehouse later today.

[Emiel de Jong]

Here is a drawing of the unit, hopefully this helps to figure out how to get the flywheel off. And here is the text that was with it, on axial play and adjustment, sorry, for now in Dutch only...

"Controleer axiale speling kruisas; deze dient zeer klein te zijn. Indien deze groot is, moet het kruis vervangen worden - controleer axiale speling en instelling opzetas als volgt (fig. 1) : draai de beide borgschroeven A op de taatsen B en C los en schroef taats C +/- 3 slagen los - plaats het kruis verticaal en laat het voorzichtig rusten op de kruisas - draai de onderste taats B zover terug, tot het vliegwiel zwaar loopt in de arretstanden - draai daarna de taats langzaam aan tot het moment dat het vliegwiel weer licht draaibaar is - inspecteer of bij de andere 3 arretstanden het vliegwiel eveneens licht draaibaar is. Draai de borgschroef van taats B nu stevig vast. Draai daarna taats C aan tot men voelt dat hij de opzetas juist raakt, en draai hem dan 1/4 slag terug en borg hem met bijbehorende borgschroef A. Controleer nog eenmaal of het vliegwiel licht draaibaar is in alle arretstanden terwijl het maltezerkruis verticaal op de kruisas rust."

DP70kruis001.jpg

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

It's actually VERY easy to tear one down. Remove the rear bracket. Remove the nut holding the flywheel on the cam shaft, I made a special puller for the flywheel, but also check for two tapped holes in the flywheel as you can insert two appropriate hardened machine screws and use those to push the flywheel off. Tighten both screws down at the same time. The rest is very easy. Also note that there is a magnet inside the intermittent to attract small metal particles, so be sure to clean that off.

[Sigurd Wik]

Emiel and Mark, thanks a lot. That should do it to get started.

Sam, nice to hear you might have some.

[Jim Cassedy]

For the technically curious, who are also totally Dutch deficient ( like me ), here's an OCR machine translation of the text in Emiel's diagram:

Check cross shaft axial play, it should be very small.
If it is large, the cross must be replaced - check axial play and adjustment shaft as follows:
(fig. 1): loosen the two locking screws A on pivots B and C and unscrew pivot C +/- 3 turns - place the cross vertically and let it rest carefully on
the cross shaft - turn the lower pivot B back until the flywheel runs heavily in the detent positions - then slowly tighten the pivot until the moment
that the flywheel can be turned slightly again - check whether the flywheel can also be turned slightly at the other 3 detent positions
Now tighten the locking screw of pivot B. Then tighten pivot C until you feel it touches the attachment shaft correctly, and turn it then 1/4 turn
back and secure it with the corresponding locking screw A. Check once more that the flywheel can be turned slightly in all detent positions
while the Maltese cross rests vertically on the cross axis.

And, just for fun, here's Mark's instructions translated to Dutch:
Controleer de axiale speling van de dwarsas, deze moet erg klein zijn. Als het groot is, moet het kruis worden vervangen - controleer de axiale
speling en de afstelas als volgt (fig. 1): draai de twee borgschroeven A op de draaipunten B en C los en draai het draaipunt C +/- 3 slagen los -
plaats het kruis verticaal en laat deze voorzichtig op de dwarsas rusten - draai de onderste spil B terug totdat het vliegwiel zwaar loopt in de
arreteerstanden - draai vervolgens de spil langzaam vast tot het moment dat het vliegwiel weer iets kan worden gedraaid - controleer of het
vliegwiel ook kan worden iets gedraaid in de andere 3 arreteerstanden Draai nu de borgschroef van spil B vast. Draai vervolgens spil C vast
totdat u voelt dat deze de bevestigingsas goed raakt, en draai hem dan een kwart slag terug en zet hem vast met de bijbehorende borgschroef
A. Controleer nogmaals of het vliegwiel in alle arreteerstanden licht kan worden gedraaid terwijl het Maltezer kruis verticaal op de dwarsas rust.

> The above texts have been machine translated. Use either at your own risk! , and Have A fijne dag!

[Emiel de Jong]

Thanks Jim! That machine translation is quite close: one important thing is "licht" means slightly, but also easily... and here it is important that the flywheel can be turned easily in all 4 stop positions, not just a little bit ;-) The word "cross" in the translation should be read as "intermittent unit" (we call the intermittent unit "maltezerkruis" or simply "kruis"). And I guess a better word for pivot here is thrust-bearing screw? Allemaal in elk geval een fijne dag gewenst!