The Project & Project Goals :

This project is to make a Double 8 Cine Film Scanner for my old cine cameras. If the project can do 16mm film, that would be a bonus ( more on that later ). 

Project so far : 

This project has been an idea of mine for a while, but I have been waiting for the right viewer to come up on eBay. When I saw this fantastic beast, I knew this was the one. The main draw is the crank handle, allowing the film to either advance forward or be rewound ( see photo below)  

My aim is to motorise this to allow for fully automated scanning/filming of the footage. 

This viewer has the fun oddity of being able to change film types. The film gate assembly ( Dark grey section ) can be fully removed and can change between Double 8 and 16mm cine film. I'm now on the lookout for the 16mm Version. 

So far, I have been fixing this up and removing unneeded parts. The main piece of work I had to carry out was on the film gate. There is a rotating lens that also acts as the shutter. When the film pulls over the Front left-hand Gear, this rotates the Gate, or it is supposed to. When I got this unit, the gears were extremely stiff. Fixing and tracing the issue was made worse by some Gears being metal and some plastic ( evil designers ) .

Behind the small Gear at the rear of the assembly, there are two plastic cylinder washers. These had shrunk just enough over time that the whole assembly could bearly move. So I booted up my PC and designed a replacement to 3D print. This will be available online at some point, free for anyone to use. 

This is as far as the project has gotten so far; the next steps are to remove the mirrors and mains power from the inside. Change this out to a 12-volt system and change the bulb out for an LED ( the case gets hot! At the moment). Then, mount a Raspberry Pi and camera to see how well I can view the film.