Ever watch Youtube Projector Videos? Maybe 10% of them are worthwhile. Most "repair" videos are made by clowns who even admit they never tried it before. One guy had a tutorial on replacing Elmo ST-1200 belts, and he put them on wrong! He figure-eighted them for some reason.

I love the ones where some guy says, "Look what I just picked up for $10 at a flea market!" Then they go on to talk about how "retro" and "cool" it is, and act like it is so rare an unusual. Then they fumble as they try to use it, call the reels "wheels" etc, and their biggest complaint once they figure out how to get it to work and thread is that the film doesn't always catch on the take-up reel!

Maybe because I've been using projectors constantly for 50 years, I just can't understand other people's misconceptions. Film and projectors are in my blood.

Hi Thomas,

Like most everything on youtube, some videos are hit and miss. I reference youtube often for car repair tutorials. Some are very well done, others are really worthless. I will at least acknowledge a bit of interest in old school film projection within these somewhat ignorant clowns. The good videos are few and far between as you too have noticed.

There are some funny ones on there thats for sure, a few on there are there are ok and clearly done by a few who know but youtube certainly lacks anything of value for servicing.
Considering how many so called experts there are one other channels, they dont seem like to share worthy knowledge.

I prefer text and still pics for repairs. It's easier to reference while attempting the repair yourself.

Even with the "experts" on other channels, you need to luck out and find someone who had the exact same problem you have, for the exact same projector. I'm not sure I've ever found that -- I've improvised my repairs and have had decent luck. If I can't do a repair, it's usually since a part isn't available. For something like Eumig motor mounts, despite the "popularity" of the issue, I don't believe there are any online guides. I figured it out myself.

The "experts" on other channels often give wrong or misleading info -- and they say with conviction that THIS is the problem with YOUR machine, lol.

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing -- there's a certain woman who posts about her "fixes", and she often uses wrong terminology, and does some really weird things that compromise the stability of the projector. Case-in-point -- the variable speed control on those old B&H silent projectors are not rheostat -- no current is controlled. Instead, the motor pulley is changed mechanically to adjust the speed. I'm surprised people never corrected her on that.

Then she tells some poor bloke that a certain lens will fit his machine, he buys it, and then reports that it doesn't fit!!!

I certainly don't blame the "experts" for not making vids -- it's hard enough to fix these machines, you often need 3 hands. I certainly couldn't deal with fixing something and worrying about the camera setup to boot, making sure it can see what I'm doing, etc.

I'm not ashamed to admit that attempting things yourself, even with the play by play instructions of a service book, can and often does end in disaster, without going into detail, I refer to my SL2 slot loader, doing what I thought was a right thing ended in the machine being sent off to be done properly. We can all add oil and grease to moving parts, it's whether it's done correctly or not. Without the experience and correct tools for certain jobs, repairs are for those who know.
When it comes to the day when there are no options but have a go, then things will be different,
No one expects professionals to waste time ponsing about with youtube and telling all, they are busy doing the job, the ones who make me think twice about their abilities are Aholes who like to shout from the top about what they have or can do, and the minute someone comes on to ask for help or advice, they go silent, there's plenty of those out there. .

Well, I usually stumble my way to some sort of success with repairs! lol

I haven't had to do much on either of my 16mm machines, one of which I've had for 25 years! (knock on wood.) On my Elmo 16-CL, when I bought it, I immediately order Urbanski's new rollers. That was pretty easy to install, but I did need to email him since I didn't note which rollers go where before I removed the old ones!

I have the service manual for that machine, and though these things are usually useless to me, it actually helped me fix the auto-loop-resetter, which wasn't doing anything. But my fix was my own improvisation. I needed to roughen-up some kind of roller so it would have enough friction to engage the loopsetter. It uses a Rube-Goldberg system, and I'm not sure why you can't manually reset the loop as on their Super 8 machines. I had tried to come up with a solution to somehow build a manual switch for it, but it never got past it being just a thought. The way it works now really looks like something out of the "Mousetrap" board game!

I would have given up the hobby years ago if I had to rely on sending my machines out to be repaired. Shipping alone is expensive -- I've never known of a local place. Back in the VCR days, I brought the same machine back to a repair place 2x, and it was never fixed properly. Didn't cost me anything since it was still under warranty, but it still chewed up some of my VHS tapes, and that wasn't even the original problem!

And as I've mentioned before, almost 30 years ago I bought my first Elmo, the ST-1200HD, that was supposed to be fully serviced, but after a few weeks started to run slow, and the next thing you know I'm ordering belts from Elmo in Canada. They had to send me belts several times because the first ones didn't fit!

There was a place that used to advertise in "Coming Attractions" from Steve Osbourne that was actually fairly local to me back then, yet I remember someone writing an article in that same publication on how they used that service to "fix" his Elmo, and when he received it back, it no longer fit a 1200 foot reel!

I know you had a guy on your side of the pond, Tom, who has fixed your machines before, but I think you said he no longer does it. At least you were lucky that he was reliable when he did work on your machines.

I consider the repair part of the hobby, and sometimes part of the fun. But I will never claim to be an expert.

I've been buying a few machines recently that needed work, but I knew that going in, and luckily most of the parts are available from Van Eck. Now I'm just waiting for them to arrive, and with some luck I will have a few more "almost as good as new" machines for a fraction of the price had they been "mint" and "serviced"! Again, knock on wood!

Quote: Tom Photiou wrote in post #5

---

the ones who make me think twice about their abilities are Aholes who like to shout from the top about what they have or can do, and the minute someone comes on to ask for help or advice, they go silent, there's plenty of those out there. .

---