Schematic for Revere S-16 16mm sound projector

[Osvaldo Flores]

Hi,
I am restoring an early Revere S-16 sound projector and would appreciate receiving a copy of the amplifier schematic. My amplifier has six tubes which according to the service manual is an "early model" and was not covered in the manual I have. The tubes are: 12AU6, 12AX7, and 4-50B5
Also this amplifier have two selenium rectifiers.
I am hoping someone has a copy of the schematic that can be scanned and please send it to me.
Any help will be very appreciate
(Please find pictures of my amp on the attached files)
Thank you
Osvaldo - ogftelevision@yahoo.com

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I guess I should ask if the exciter lamp even comes on when you try to run a film? Note that it is run by a high frequency oscillator rather than by DC voltage. I had one of these projectors when I was about 12 years old to run my Laurel & Hardy films on. Mine had the same amplifier that you posted. Also attached is an image I found on-line of the later version amplifier.

Mine had a bad hum in it from the main filter capacitor being open. I replaced that and the projector ran great for a long time. Finding parts and data on this is going to be difficult. Back when I had mine I could get any part for it I needed from International Camera Repair in Chicago. They bought out Revere when the factory closed. But they are log gone and I'm afraid so are the parts and manuals for it. It should be an easy fix for any capable electronic technician. But to be honest I would start by completely re-capping the entire chassis, and replace the selenium rectifiers before doing anything else. Those caps are from the 1950's and the smoke from a burning selenium rectifier is highly toxic and can kill you!!! I also forgot to mention to check the value of each resistor as the old carbon comp resistors can and do drift!

BTW, For those that don't know... The guy that started Revere also started Wollensak tape recorders that were commonly found in schools and was eventually picked up by 3-M..

[Osvaldo Flores]

Hi Mark,
thank you for answering, yes, my amp is also making a bad hum when I start the motor, and I notice that the exciter lamp dimly lit... First I'll replace the 3 in one capacitor 170/50/25 mf 150VDC with singles ones and replace the selenium rectifiers with a diode... I try to get the schematic but still no luck.
Thanks again for your concern and kindness.
Osvaldo

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Mark beat me to it with the suggestion of a complete re-capping and replacing the selenium rectumfires. It should be an easy but time consuming job to fix all of the caps and checking all of the resistors, but it will pay off. Tube gear is generally robust and tolerances can be somewhat off and it will still operate fairly well.

As for the Rever/Wollensak connection, I thought that the chassis style and overall design looked familiar...too many years ago I recapped and fixed a few Wollensaks for my local school. (The kids always called them "Swollensaks" however.

[Osvaldo Flores]

Thanks Tony,
well, I know it will be time consuming to revive this amp, but I'm retire now and it will be a good feeling to see Frankestain walk again ?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Also, consider the age of the projector and the fact that if something in the mechanism breaks, then it is all over. That's what happened to mine. So I recommend looking for a more common 16mm projector like a kodak Pagent which you can find another easily to steal parts from when the end of life hits. Also, Stay away from Hell & Bowells!!! The main worm gear in them always cracks, and although you can get new gears it is like a two day job to replace one.

[Osvaldo Flores]

Yes I knew about Hell & Bowells ?, I do have a working 16mm sound ( Eiki MS-861-P), but I just want to fix this monster...
Thanks for your advice

[Jim Cassedy]

I had one of these projectors when I was about 12 years old to run my Laurel & Hardy films on.

WoW Mark- we must be distantly related. I had one of those Revere's back when I was about 14yrs old, and used it for the same reason.
I never had any amp problems, although I do remember having to make some sort of adjustment to the take up clutch inside the arm
as the take-up would start to 'stall' with a full 1600' reel. It was those cast pot-metal arms (or whatever they were made out) of that finially
doomed my projector when I knocked it off a table and the feed arm cracked off when it landed on the concrete floor in my basement.
I usually hooked it up to one of those large stand-alone B&H speakers I had, which gave much better sound than the little 6 or 7inch
speaker in the cover of the Revere. Yes, the exciter lamp ran on HF-AC, but my recollection of the sound system in that projector was
that the amp pretty much ran at a fixed gain, and the "volume control" actually changed the brightness of the exciter lamp.
It wasn't a bad machine for one of my first 16mm projectors. I held on to it for a long time, and I wound up eventually giving it to
another 16mm film collector who had the same machine so he could have some spare parts. I remember him saying that he
especially needed the amp, since his amp was 'getting noisy'. One of the nice things about those older amps is that there was
plenty of room inside to work on them (sort of like older cars before they started adding all the anti-pollution stuff) and many times
you could find a problem without any test instruments, using only your eyes & nose. All you had to do was look around to find a
component that looked like it had overheated or burned, and/or smelled burnt or stank really bad! (ie:those old selenium stacks)

- - now, with everything from projectors to amps having gone digital, everything' is an IT problem..

As for dropping projectors- - after the unfortunate Revere-drop, I think I over-compensated and I owned a pair of US Navy
Surplus JAN's back in the 80's. They were "built like a battleship", and weighed almost as much. One time, the handle
(which was one of the few pieces of plastic on those things) broke while I was carrying one the projectors down a long
flight of faux marble or psudo-stone stairs. There was more damage done to the staircase than to the projector. Several
steps got dinged & chipped. Other than the broken handle, the only "damage' to the projector was that the lamp somehow
popped out of the socket. At first I was afraid the, the owners of the building might have been mad or charged me for the
damaging the staircase- - but this happened at a church, so I guess they just forgave me. lol Hey- - it was an "act of God",

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Great story Jim!! It's almost as though we are twins or something. After I left Canon I went to work for the largest School District at least in Illinois. Don't remember the number of schools that were in District 200, but I do remember the number of 16mm projectors was 987. The district even had it's own film library, cleaning/inspection machines and full staff. I was the head of AV Repair and had three other guys under me. I repaired mainly Eiki's there because that had mainly Eiki's. Next was Kodak Pageants. The few B&H's they had were phased out when the plastic worm gear cracked... When buying new we went with Elmo's.

I stayed there a few years and then went into Broadcast TV in Chicago, mainly because I could repair Canon TV Zoom lenses which I hardly ever had to do there. Of course I also maintained the film chains (TP-66's and TK-28's), cameras (TK45's and the great Ikegami HL79''s)) and all video monitoring scopes. Twice a month I worked with the transmitter engineer from midnight to 6 am on the 94th floor of the Hancock building.. From there I went into cinema work, although I had been rebuilding projectors and other aspects of it as a hobby for years. I was in Local 110 for about a year and was assigned to the Logan Theater. After about 8 months there I got wind that neither Cineplex or Lowe's were going to renew their contracts. So I went on my own servicing theaters, so I still had a job. That lasted in the Midwest for 18 years and then I moved out west and continued doing the same.

1153.jpg .

[John Eickhof]

heres a link to the schematic... i hope it is the correct amp, john Revere S16 (acofs.org.au). this one has 35C5 tubes instead of the 50B5 tubes, I am thinking that yours is a 220 volt unit where this one is 120 volt mains? this is the only one I can find! if anything, it may be close enough to help you troubleshoot.

[Osvaldo Flores]

Thank you John,
This schematic is for the amplifier that uses 5 tubes, is not the one I need( 6 tubes) but I really thank you for trying to help me.
Right now I'm in the process of updating all the capacitors and replacing the selenium rectifier for a diode with a series resistor.
Is been impossible to find the right schematic for my amplifier, but I think I'm going on the right direction of slowly fixing this...Thanks again and have a very happy holidays
Osvaldo

[Larry Kerecman]

I've got the same problem - a six tube chassis but can only find schematics for five-tube amplifiers. Mine is a 120-Volt unit. The exciter oscillator works and after fixing the bad contact on the exciter lamp base it lights up. Bought a NOS photocell on ebay. I get a bit of hum out of the speaker but no sound from the film. Mechanically it works fine. Was hoping to find a schematic before tearing into all of those caps.

[Osvaldo Flores]

Hi Larry,
I never was able to find the schematic for the 6 tube Amp. I replaced all the caps and the amp start working.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

I've got the same problem - a six tube chassis but can only find schematics for five-tube amplifiers. Mine is a 120-Volt unit. The exciter oscillator works and after fixing the bad contact on the exciter lamp base it lights up. Bought a NOS photocell on ebay. I get a bit of hum out of the speaker but no sound from the film. Mechanically it works fine. Was hoping to find a schematic before tearing into all of those caps.

Larry, you can replace the caps without having the schematic. You simply get the values off of the old ones before removing them (you may have to twist them to read the markings), then you simply change them out ONE AT A TIME.

To change them, clip ONE lead off, solder the replacement to that same lead, then clip the other lead and lather, rinse, repeat. It is a slower process but much less likely to have a mistake made. Only the electrolytic is polarity sensitive, but all the others it doesn't really matter. (Since this isn't a radio you don't need to worry about the "Outside foil" nonsense.)

I've rebuilt a few old tube AM radios with this method with almost total success. (On one radio I misread a value and have the wrong cap in the audio circuit, it is very bass-heavy.)