As you should have been taught to do, you need to turn the machine over by hand with the motor flywheel, watch the intermittent sprocket. When the intermittent sprocket rotates 90 degrees and then stops, you stop turning the machine over by hand. The intermittent sprocket is now in the "dwell" postion. Now you thread up the film in frame with the framing aperture at the top of the trap assembly. If you do this, you will always start in frame (providing that no one has messed with the framing knob and there are no out of frame splices). Works every time!

------------------

quote:

---

"More human than human" is our motto.

---

Scott

Make yourself a loop out of a green band and run it. (Make SURE you threaded it in frame, if not, stop the projector and open the gate and fix it before proceeding. Also bear in mind "most" green bands are properly centered, but not all.) Fine tune your framing knob so the words are exactly centered top to bottom. Now, NEVER touch that framing control again.

TO THREAD IN FRAME:
Turn the projector over by hand using the flywheel on the front of the projector mounted on the side of the motor. On an XL, the flywheel will turn "down" to inch the machine forward. Notice the upper sprocket and the lower sprocket as well as the holdback sprocket (in the soundhead) will turn constantly while the "intermittent" sprocket (at the bottom of the gate) stops and starts and stops and starts. What you must do is turn the flywheel until the intermittent sprocket is in it's stopped position (between pulldowns) and leave it there. Then, simply thread your projector as you normally would (hopefully keeping the leader off of the floor) and make sure when you close the gate that one of the frames on the leader is properly centered in the framing window at the top of the gate assembly. If not, open the gate back up and try again. There is a light behind this window (assuming it is not burned out) which makes this easier.

Now before you start and once you are finished threading, go back and make sure you have threaded in frame by turning the motor flywheel a few more times. Notice that each frame on the leader pulls down quickly into the centered position on that framing window and pauses there. If when it pauses the leader is not in frame with that window, it will start out of frame and you must reopen the gate to correct the problem. Never in any circumstances should the framing control be touched during threading. (NOTE: the ONLY way you can tell if you have threaded it in or out of frame is by turning the flywheel. You cannot simply look at it without the mechanism in motion.)

quote:

---

Never in any circumstances should the framing control be touched during threading.

---

But I guess that is the exception that proves the rule!

------------------

quote:

---

"More human than human" is our motto.

---

Scott

 |  IP: Logged

 |  IP: Logged

 |  IP: Logged

Not so quick with your "facts."

There is even more adjustments that can be made.

Since you say your auditoriums are "new" then one presumes you have turrets. All of the turrets I know allow for adjusting the lens stops in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions...as such one can move the picture and get some keystone correction in the bonus.

Older pedestals have a tilt wheel that will allow one to set the center as needed for each format (some even had stop rings so you didn't have to mark or guess).

If you have single lens projectors and tilting the pedestal/console isn't going to work, there are Perspective Change adapters that will let you shift the lens to center the picture and again you pick up keystone correction in the bonus.

Steve

I have a Simplex XL (PR-1030) built in the late 50's or early 60's. It may be a little different than yours but I'm willing to bet it's 90% the same. Here's what I tell people...

1) Look at the intermittent sprocket... There will be a "ring" at the end of it. (That's the outboard bearing, if you wanna' be technical.) See if there's a bunch of red lines on that ring. (There ought to be 4 of them. Also, there ought to be another one on the "bracket" that holds the intermittent sprocket. If your proj. has these lines, yours is pretty much the same as mine...

2) Turn the FRAMING knob until the red line on the bracket is roughly vertical.

Turn your flywheel (downward) and watch the bearing/ring turn and stop when one of the red lines on the ring is lined up with the one on the bracket.

Thread the film with the frame centered in the framing window.

You ought to be in frame, now. If you DO have to make adjustments, they'll only be minor. Once you make that adjustment, you shouldn't have to do it again unless you mess up when you thread.

I always thought it best to do the "green band" or "RP40" setup with the framing knob near the center of its range, rather than at either extreme. That way if framing is needed during a show (e.g., an out of frame splice, heaven forbid), you have the capability of framing in either direction. I recall that some Century projectors actually had a set of embossed red lines on the intermittent and the projector light shield assembly as a guide to setting the framing knob near the center of its travel.

------------------
John Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Professional Motion Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, NY 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
john.pytlak@kodak.com

I (respectfully!) disagree strongly with the idea of fixing the framing knob so it can't be adjusted. While it may be a lesson to a new operator, I also feel it is a big annoyance to patrons to have a show stop, (wait for the automation to cycle) and start again. It should be used for it's intended purpose: to quickly fix a one-in-a-blue-moon, "opps!"

As to locking the framing control down, not only is it a damn good lesson to a newbie, but as an added bonus when I go in to thread I don't have to wonder if the guy before me made an error during threading, racked the framing control, reset it back...and it not being quite perfectly centered. With all the ads most theaters have to run before a good solid green band comes along to ensure proper framing, very few operators are going to stand by the machine and wait for the first one to verify an exact framing. Locking the framing controls down ensures it will never be off. Besides, I can only remember one time in the last 10 years where I misframed during threading anyway...and there was a "questionable" splice at the end of the leader which I immediately corrected.