Portable Simplex PR1014

[Nick Bauer]

Hello Film-Tech,
A friend of mine gave me a Strong Simplex 35 PR1014 with a 5 Star sound head from the campus theater at our alma mater. Having a few years experience with 16mm and knowing full well what a financially ruinous phrase “free projector” is, I took it anyway and I’m looking to make a portable projector cart out of it for home use. I don’t have a dedicated projection booth and really don’t have the option to build one in my house, so it has to be something that can be rolled away and stored somewhere else when I’m done projecting.

I have a solution, or at least a plan for most of the foreseeable challenges except for film supply and take-up. I don’t have room or budget for a platter system and I’d rather not use magazines that would limit me to 2000’ reels. Ideally I’d use reel arms like Kelmar or similar, but at $1000-$2000, new ones are definitely out of my budget. An unused set just went on eBay for $200 a few weeks ago and I just can’t kick myself hard enough for missing it.

I’ll make a specific WTB post as well, but are there any other options out there? The projector has a 2” bolt spacing for the supply on top and a 5.5” bolt spacing for the take-up on the bottom, which I gather is a standard across several manufacturers. It does have an open pulley in the sound head gearbox that I’m pretty sure is for driving a take-up reel. I assume there has to be some sort of clutch on the take-up arm that converts the constant velocity of the drive pulley to constant torque at the reel, correct?

Thanks for any guidance anyone may have. This community has already been a tremendous resource in learning about what I’m dealing with here.

[Randy Stankey]

If you go to Harbor Freight or some place like that you should be able to find an engine stand.

You will need to find a machinist who can make an adapter plate that goes from the bolt pattern of the projector to the bolt pattern of the engine stand or, if you are handy, fabri-cobble one, yourself.

An engine stand has wheels so as to make the thing portable and it will make the projector convenient to work on until you can get things together, well enough, to come up with a long term solution.

The engine stand and the adapter should cost $100 or less and it will easily be able to hold the weight of a Simplex projector.

For example: https://www.harborfreight.com/1000-l...and-69886.html

[Nick Bauer]

Thanks, Randy
I considered using something like an engine stand, but I already had some aluminum 80/20 on hand that they were throwing out at work. I made this stand for it that I’ll build up into a cart. If I add 36” legs, a base, and 4” tall casters it will put my lens right at 64” from the floor, which is pretty ideal for my space. These extrusions are amazingly rigid and can hold this 140lb projector pretty solidly in this setup.

[Chris Wehrman]

Nice stand! Do you have a plan for the lamp house?

[Gary A. Hoselton]

A pair of Kelmar reel arms has 2" mount bolt spacing bracket for top arm, and wider spacing for bottom arm. Friction clutch at reel spindle is a 5" x 1/8" felt disk, which Kelmar says to oil but I think mine do better dry over range of spindle speeds. Takeup sheeves are made for round cross-section belt, however V-belt works fine and has no but-joint to come apart at inconvenient time. My Kelmar arm mounts under 5-Star soundhead, and Mitsuboshi 3L450/M45 belt fits fine tho maybe get M44 and M46 lengths too and keep whichever fits best. Kelmar arm is long enough for about 24" diameter reel, which holds 5000+ feet of acetate film if it winds tight. Might be dangerously cumbersome to lift more than 4000' of film up to feed spindle height you are proposing.

Lamphouse and power supply? Soundhead power supply? Sound processor and amplifier? Yes, "free never is", but it's a lot of fun.

[Nick Bauer]

Good info, thanks.
I was already able to track down a Component Engineering power supply for the sound head LED and preamp. My sound head is only equipped to read optical, so I’ll probably just run the audio into my HiFi for now. I don’t know exactly how hot the signal comes off of the preamp yet, but if it’s quieter than normal line level I have an open phono input that can probably handle it.

For the light source I cannibalized the lamp, ballast, and power supply out of a used DLP projector. I also borrowed a condenser lens out of my photo enlarger to try to put as much of the light through the aperture as I can. I know it will always have shortcomings compared to xenon, but there’s just a lot more cost and hassle associated with xenon than I want to go through right now. If I get everything else working and feel like the metal halide light is holding me back, I’ll look at upgrading, but I think this will be good enough to get me started.

I know I won’t be getting the absolute best possible theater experience out of it, but my main goal here is just the fun and enjoyment of handling film and working with mechanical projectors.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Piecing it all together should be fairly easy, but as a person that did gobs of portable work in the 80's and 90's, Simplex's do not make good portable machines, been there done that as they say. The main problem is oil seepage both past the main drive shaft, and right through the bottom of the main casting. However, If your Simplex was made by Strong the seepage through the casting is much less of an issue as they heat treated the main castings. I used Century C's for portable work over the years as they tend to stay clean and also put out an incredible image. At any rate be sure to place a tarp where ever you place the projector and watch for oil drips on the tarp and place a catch basin or cookie sheet at that spot to prevent making a real big mess.