View Single Post
Old 10th Jun 2019, 5:11 pm   #53
Techman
Dekatron
 
Techman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Lincolnshire, UK.
Posts: 4,985
Default Re: Bell and Howell TQII 1652 16mm projector

I was keeping my fingers crossed for you that you were going to bag that unit. Old film projectors are a bit of a minority interest and failure of that module seems to be not that common, so I thought you stood a good chance. I also noted that you managed to get some shuttle claws from the same person. Do you know if these are an item that's likely to need replacement and are they standard over a range of projector models of the type being discussed here?

The reverse engineering of the new board looks interesting and very well done for doing it, and with a good photo of the top and bottom of the circuit board, it may be possible for someone to make a replacement in the future, should another replacement be unavailable.

I hadn't run my particular projector, which is a 156 model from around 1942 (it still has the original power supply square cardboard cased smoothing capacitors in the amplifier) for a few years, but I dragged it out a month or so ago show a couple of films to some visitors and demonstrate the old technology to them. It worked fine until one of the films broke about a quarter of the way in. I've got a few empty spools, so I carried on with the rest of the film, running it onto another reel. It had failed at an old splice that I had made when it broke once before. I seem to remember that there were about four ingredients plus cut up bits of film to make the splicing gum, but where I used to work when I made some up, we only had three of them, so probably why it didn't work so well. Now I don't have access to those solvents, which included Acetone, which I do have a drop of, so I tried it with that, but it didn't work. I was thinking of buying the proper stuff, but a bit of internet research indicates that it possibly doesn't keep too well, and seeing as I only have a couple of complete films at the moment, I wouldn't have a lot of use for it at a tenner or more a time. However, the internet search did indicate that 'Superglue' works well, especially when heat is applied to the splicer. So I tried it with the broken film and it worked well and the film is now all back on one reel. I've got a lot of short lengths of old film that were originally with the old 156 projector, so the other night I set about joining them all together in a usable length, using the Superglue with the splicer and careful and quick use of a heat gun, I now have one long length of film. The film bits seem to be basically from two separate old black and white films which although now wound on the spool the correct way round, are not necessarily in the correct order but at least it now has entertainment value and is usable as a test film, which is why these film lengths were originally left with the projector in the first place.

Below are a couple of pictures, the first showing the cut off remains of all the (most of the) damaged sprocket areas from the spicing fun and the second of the working/lacing parts of the B & H 156 for comparison with the previous two models shown in this thread:-
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	P1120831.JPG
Views:	108
Size:	153.4 KB
ID:	184836   Click image for larger version

Name:	P1120833.JPG
Views:	103
Size:	159.4 KB
ID:	184837  

Last edited by Techman; 10th Jun 2019 at 5:27 pm.
Techman is offline