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Author Topic: Help to determine what 5 screens worth of equipment is worth. Brad Allen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 688 From: Evansville, IN, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 01-23-2004 01:55 PM                     How, where does one get info to make a fair offer on 5 screens worth of equipment from a theatre that's getting ready to close? It's all century SA projectors I believe. Not sure yet what else. Any pointers appreciated!  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-24-2004 12:31 PM                     On the Centurys take a look and see if they are timming belt drive or multi vee belts from motor to sound head. Its pretty obvious which is which. The timmig belt version is more desriable to have. Also look at the gear side. If its really full of old grease and glop then you can assume these machines were pretty much neglected and not maintained very well. Run each machine and listen to the intermittent movements for any really loud ticking/picking noise which would be an indication of worn parts inside. A slight ticking or picking noise is ok though on this model. Be sure that all bearing inner races are turning freely with the shafts when you turn the machine over by hand!! A stuck or frozen race is not uncomon on machines that hvae been sitting for a long time. Remove the lower rear covers on the projectors and check for excess wear on the main drive fibre gear and all other fibre gears while you're at it, and whilst running each machine lightly feel the end of the shutter shaft with your finger at the knob on the front for any bobbing in and out of the shutter shaft. This is an indication of a serious problem warranting an overhaul of that head. Big hint...Even if the equipment is in mint condition don't offer too much for it. Offer what it is worth to you based on your insepection of it. And be sure that if you make a purchase direct from someone other than your normal tech that he will still do work on it for you. There are technicians out there that are stupid enough to completely turn their back on you simply because you didn't purchase it from them. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Brad Allen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 688 From: Evansville, IN, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 01-25-2004 04:16 PM                     Thanks Mark, Lots to think about. I've been there and taken inventory. The theatre is still in operation. I was wrong about the Sa's. They have: Two Century CC's w/R5 sound, One Century C w/R5 One Ballantyne Pro-35 with auto lense change w/Ballantyne sound mod VII. One Westrex 2001-E3 with Westrex sndhd. (looked exactly like a century C, is it? 3 Christie CH-10-CC9 consoles/built in ps with am3 automation. 1 Christie Ch-10-09 console w/Irem ps. One Christie lamphouse Hd-10 w/irem ps. 5 potts 3 tier's One Dolby D system, w CP500, and 5 FTX-2001 Ashley Amps. The DD had a problem, hard to explain, the sound was like it was clipped very briefly, was most noticable with music. You had to listen closely to notice it. Projectionist pointed it out to me. Could be heard with booth monitor in all 3 stage speakers. This system had JBL mains, couldn't see mod number, Two JBL subs, and JBL 8330 or similiar surrounds. Everything ran very nicely, rock solid pictures and good focus out of all of it. All lamphouse's fired right up. I do remember a couple of the proj's having the multi v belts. I only found one bottom fiber gear was completely dry of grease. And looked a little worse for wear. I didn't know about the shutter feel trick, I'll make another trip to check that out. Thanks again for your comments! Any more comments GREATLY appreciated.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-25-2004 04:23 PM                        When you heard the "clipping" noise with SRD, what was the error rate on the SRD track? If it was relatively high (6-7), then you were probably just hearing the track faulting to SR momentariliy and then switching back to SRD, which causes a subtle "pop" with the CP500. It's probably a reader alignment problem or an issue with the track itself.  |  IP: Logged Brad Allen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 688 From: Evansville, IN, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 01-25-2004 04:38 PM                     It was my first up close and personal experience with a CP-500. I did watch the LCD panel and didn't see it fall back to SR. But now that you mention it, there was an LED read out just to the left of the gain knob that seems had a 6 displayed. But I wasn't sure what I was looking at. (showing my ignorance here.) But now that you mention it, that's what it did sound like, switching back and forth from SR to SR-D. The projectionist said it had did the same thing during their run of LOTR. Thanks for the reply.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-25-2004 04:46 PM                     Hard to say what the SRD problem is but it certainly would be easily repairable. Also what penthouse does it come with. I would assume a CAT 701. The error rate LED readout is inside the 500. Open the front panel and the seven segment led display is to the right. It'll be obvious. Typical readout for decent a new print is usually 2. to 4. although yesterday I saw a print running a solid 1 to 1. with a BACP Penthouse. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Brad Allen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 688 From: Evansville, IN, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 01-25-2004 05:01 PM                     The digital reader is a Kelmar/Dolby basement reader unit. Which if I recall, is not high on most's list around here.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 01-25-2004 10:20 PM                    I have those on Simplex 5-Star soundheads. One went in with little trouble. The other caused a lot of head scratching because there were a lot of little flitty errors that would cause a momentary F (fail) reading in the midst of otherwise average error rates. No reversion but it would put little ticks in the sound. As you said, this was most noticable during music (long notes). It was clearly an instability in film motion but it took a long time to trace it down. To make a long story short a new sound scanner drum cured it--this had been passed over because the old one seemed fine and showed no trace of wobble but it must've been there. Low or uneven LED illumination can cause similar problems.  |  IP: Logged Jeff Taylor Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 601 From: Chatham, NJ/East Hampton, NY Registered: Apr 2000 posted 01-26-2004 01:45 PM                     Every situation will be different, but in past years a friend and I used to sell off equipment from abandoned GCC units in his buildings. Typically, for a complete mono projector unit, including rectifier, lamphouse, reader, head, etc, and whatever else was left in the booth (usually a mono amp and some kind of rudimentary automation) we'd get $2500-$3500 per booth depending on condition, etc. This was in place, you remove, as is, and most of the stuff was pretty old and rough and frequently missing lenses. Of course, there might be extra lamps, oil, water coolers, etc. (usually no lenses) which went with the bargain. Like I said, every situation is different, but it may give you a frame of reference.  |  IP: Logged

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