Coin op XXX fun!!! NOW WORKING!!!!!

[Retropin]

I picked up this 1950's coin operated peep show machine off Ebay a little while back. I know nothing about these machines and my research has revealed very little more than what i first knew.... nothing.
My old man is staying with us for a while.. being an old valve man i left the fix up of this until he came over from UK.

Machine looks like this...



Aprox 1.6M of glorious fun!

I still cant work out if this machine has been repainted at some point... theres a label for the machine under the TALKIE SHORTS" piece of signwriting. The orange matches the rest of the machine perfectly and yet i can see no evidence of a paint over anywhere... if this is a paint over job, then they went to a lot of trouble to make it NOT look like that... somehow i cant see this happening.





Inside is pretty straight forward... its all behind 2 6mm thick doors






Theres a power distribution box that goes inside....the jumper leads are there as temporary fuses





Picture above has 2 off 240V coils that latch over for when a coin is dropped to start the projector..... other coil latches to stop the projector once film has run its length of allotted time..... Its all very old and possibly lethal... i think back then 240v was nothing to worry about. All this will have to be cleaned up and made safe to todays standards. we have plugged this in and the electrical supply to the house didnt click off.. so all aint that bad even if it looks real ugly!

Sound is produced via a valve amp



3 valves are missing here and i had no idea what they were meant to be... thats where my old man comes in. He took one look at this and pretty much had this nailed. Only one valve was a mystery, but we knew the pin outs required plus the capacitance... a search on the valve Museum website came up trumps and told us what valve this was......

But i had to find them... something i thought was going to be hard, but after a search i found an awesome place in Rosewood QLD... they have everything we need and so an order is placed.

heres their website... great to have this in Australia

http://evatco.com.au/index.htm

The back of this unit looks REALLY ugly!! But im told this is normal for valve... man it looks like ive been at a proto board!



Now the projector... this is a lovely little thing.. some parts made crudely while others are just exquisite



Projector has a motor with fan and its own transformer on board.

We opened up the motor as the wire insulation has all perished





We couldnt get to the windings to replace these cables altogether so i sleeved them with heat shrink instead



Inside is a 75W bulb, light from this is shone via the concave mirror just behind it



Theres a beautiful prismatic lense that spins with the film. It has black edges seperating each facet... idea is that a frame at a time is placed over a facet throughout the whole film... inbetween this and focal lense is where the film runs




The film is projected onto this piece of white card



And viewed through the eye viewer



A handy footrest is in place for comfort whilst watching the film of your choice... or maybe it is there so small boys can stand on it and try see what naked ladies look like!

.

Most things seem to work on this... just a few lethal bits to clean up and some parts to place in... but it shouldnt be too hard to get this baby going..

And yes,,, i do already have a 16mm black and white film to slot in... film is from  early 50's and with sound.

ass i do more to this machine ill post again... cant wait to have her up and running!

[ddstoys]

Very cool Gav look forward to the updates. 

[Strangeways]

A really strange looking unit - but glad you are working it out with the help from your Dad 

[goodolddays]

Certainly an unusual piece for your collection Gav .. good to hear your making progress with it

[Retropin]

Bit of an update on this project...

dad and i have tripped the power to the house several times... kids hate it as the TV goes off apparently! LOL!

This machine is far more complicated than i ever thought... the lack of information on any of these certainly doesnt help and so  we have to work something out.. rethink it and rethink again.

The power supply has been cleaned up. The old twin blade fuses have been replaced with retro looking 5A trip switches.. they look the part and also slotted directly into the existing holes meaning i didnt have to drill anything out.
OLD SUPPLY



NEW SUPPLY


There are 2 off 240V coils at the top... as a coin is dropped, the coil latches on and holds... this allows power to the motor on the projector, transformer and also an old bakelite micro switch.
When the micro switch is latched OFF it energises the second coil and cuts all power.


My valves arrive tomorrow... all seems good with the valve amp, but until the valves are in place its not all guaranteed.

Here she is in place waiting for the new ones



The projector sits on the bottom... originally it sat on some sort of plinth. You can see a square of bare timber where the paint is missing... we will have to build something up here.



Now heres some trickery..

The projector shoots the film straight forward... you can see here a bracket of sorts that must have  held a mirror




This reflected the pictures up to another mirror that sat in a bracket that tilts



Its a very convaluted way to project the picture, but meant that the film did not have to have all the titles in reverse as its reflected twice!

The film is on a continuous loop... trying to work this out hurt mine and my dads head.... we finally figured out something that would work... the film is fed from the centre and then returned to the outside of the reel.. and then i found this picture... its EXACTLY what we worked out which makes me bloody clever!



I took the header off.. and there is our evidence of a paint over... note there are 6 holes in the top. The header only has 4 in it, which means that the original one has been removed and another with differing mounting holes put in its place. Note the runs on the dark orange also... good old hand painting!.Originally, the cabinet had light orange with a black strip... the rest is an add on





Heres the header off with the plate brass badge removed.. this will be cleaned up and polished.



I found this picture on Marvins site ( whats left of it) and i THINK my machine is meant to look more like this with a taller header advertising the actual film being played



Pretty soon... we should be able to watch some filthy smut on this old girl... i do need a new bulb though as mine is blown... this has to come from USA so here is my first delay in getting this running.

More soon....

[ajlaird]

My guess is that the original film has actually been replaced by movie trailers.

[Retropin]

My valves arrived yesterday.. sent in an overnight package from Rosewood... excellent service!!!

Couldnt wait to plug them in... 2 of these are NOS ( amplifiers) the rectifier is new made in Russia



As with every other part of this machine... fixing one stage leads to a problem at the next.
Amp started off sounding good if a bit crackly ( but hey!! it works!!)... then gradually a high pitched tone starts off softly then goes WOLLOP!! and its deafening even with the ppotentiometer turned right down.

A clever bit of detective work on the CRO gave us the output signal with and without the projector plugged in...... its all over the place plugged in.

I had been avoiding taking this part apart, but it now needs to be done. Glad i had as its a delight to see this.
its a very early photocell made by CONTINENTAL part #918




Now i had always assumed that the connection to the amp from this was an input... wrong... its also an output. The photocell ( we think) requires a voltage around 200v across anode and cathode.
The AC comes down the coax to the photocell... this is then chopped up by the cell depending on the light input to this. This chopped up signal is fed back up the line as electrical  pulses, through the amp and out the speaker as sound.
My cell looks damaged... you can see in this picture some staining on the collector ( cathode). Not sure how this happened, but my guess is that this plate needs to uniform throughout, peaks and stains will allow a collection of electrons to occur and send spirious signals to our amplifier.




A check with my high freq vacuum tester confirms this. There should be an almost perfect vacuum here ( around 10 X  -3 mbar). A good vacuum at this range will give off a very light blue colour... anything OTHER than that indicates impurities... air shows as pink... here we have an almost purple colour... more than likely from the breakdown of the cathode

.

To confirm this a test across the connector is made with the CRO with and without the cell attached and we confirm that cell is faulty.

Now i managed to source my valves within Australia... i didnt have much luck with the new lamp for the projector and had to source from USA.. so i bought 5 of these. I did find a guy in QLD who apparently has everything youll ever need for 8mm, 16mm, 35mm projectors. I contacted him enquiring about my bulb... they dont exist and never have was his reply.. this is despite me having the thing in my hand as i spoke to him... DICKHEAD! 


I have found a place in USA that has these photocells for $10 ea.. lets just hope he ships overseas as im also finding that USA sellers can be bloody awkward with non US customers!

[Strangeways]

I think a Flux Capacitor might work in this application 

[Retropin]

It seems that the company that i bought my projector bulbs from didnt actually have them in stock... but they are being ordered in. This happens a lot with me lately.. online sellers that pretend to have the stock and take your money.

OH wel.... in the meantime, we did something a bit clever through necessity.

Bulb we wanted is a 10V 75W bulb.

What i found is a 12V 50W down the local hardware... both bulbs are estimated at 100 hours use.

The original bulb is a single pin base.. our new bulb needs to be modified.

We cut the glass away from the old bulb and soldered our new bulb to the now exposed filament.




 I wasnt sure how bright it was going to be as i figured it would shine at approx 1/2 the light output... i was also worried that it would desolder itself.

In fact... it works a bloody treat!






The place in Rosewood QLD also have a few of my photocells in stock.. just a couple that are not listed.

It should arrive on Thursday.

The valve amp is all cleaned up and gives off a low hum, just as it should.

We are at the point where it possible to load a film!

[Strangeways]

Oh you are just HANGING to load up one of "those films" 

[goodolddays]

Excellent work 

[ddstoys]

I'm glad you ended up with this instead of me Gav would have been out of my zone for sure well done

[Retropin]

Well the machine is now working with all smutty glory!!!

Has been quite a ride.. everything me and dad did was wrong the first time, so then we would have to go and rethink etc etc.
I did order a 16mm film about chimpanzees at the fairground and arcade ( " CHIMPS JAMBOREE") .. this was going to be my practise film to splice and load into the projector. It didnt arrive on time and being impatient i loaded one of the really filthy films i had sent in plain brown packaging.
Ive only got about 1/3rd of the actual film loaded.. seems to be a ton of it!
Ive broken this film so many times and spliced it back together again. I read that to make film glue you get some old film, chop it up, mix with acetone and 2 days later you have cement... well i did all that and some 5 days later i still have bits of film floating in acetone in a jar that smells of garlic.
Not to be set back though, i experimented and found that Super Glue works a treat.. mix that with a pair of scissors and some good eyes and you can splice film easily whilst still in the projector.
Eventually, i found that the top 2 bearings were binding and preventing the film from turning every now and again... when this happens she breaks.

Total amount of film is about 3 minutes... because its a continuous loop the beginning is also the end... at this point i have a little nick cut out of one side... as the film rolls it runs against a little wheel, this is attached to a brass arm that pushes in a bakelite and brass microswitch. When the cut out hits the wheel the arm moves out very slightly and opens the switch... this cuts the power to the projector and if you want to see more filth then you have to drop another 10c.
The adjustment of this switch is so finite.. it kept moving over too much and snapping the film! Each time its wrong the bloody film snaps!
Luckily im now an expert at splicing the backyard way.

Anyway... enough guff... get on with the filthy bits Gav.

Heres the projector running.... its sset slightly at an angle to project the film to the correct spot in the machine.
The film shines on the bottom mirror which then moves to another mirror further up




This then moves the image to the top mirror



and finally onto the viewing card




So whats it like to drop 10c and watch a film??


Come take a look.....




Bit closer...dont forget to make yourself comfortable and rest your foot




Thats better.....

Lets take a look inside...




BLIMEY!!!!!!!!



Now this film doesnt have sound... but if it did, im sure she'd be saying things like...

"Hello sailor".....  "arent you a big boy" etc etc etc.

Is bloody funny actually... her zip gets stuck on her dress and she cant get it undone... but luckily we are all looking at her rose bud lips with animal lust and didnt notice the wardrobe fluff!


Oh.. thjs machine is a classic!!! Its made perfect with absolutely filthy early 60's B&W porn...LOL!!! Thats as good as it gets gents... this is the 60's remember and ladies ( even those with loose reputations) kept their knickers on!

Hope youve enjoyed the peep show... ive absolutely loved it!

[deadlydave]

Well done Gav 
Thats a great read, never seen one of these before, handy to have your old man around for the valve side of things.
Cheers
Dave

[Strangeways]

Goopd stuff Gav.

Now you can go a play with it