What Scott said is sound advice. I’d also suggest checking the condition of the wiring around the lamp and the motor as well if you can. Cheaper projectors often use garbage wire that ages like milk, and some higher end manufacturers use wiring that can be prone to brittle wiring which exposes mains voltage and can be a problem.
i’d also suggest checking the belts, if present. GAF projectors have belts that turn to goo over time, and other 8 projectors that use belts to couple the motor and the main movement can become slack —creating an illusion of being functional most of the time but failing to move/start up at others— and can sometimes be adjusted by playing with the motor positioning a bit. and although the projectors may benefit from the addition of a lubricant, it may not match with what is actually present. you’d need to do a full disassembly to flush out the old lube and grease. and there will be parts that should be greased only, or lubed only. if you can find it, service manuals provide the correct lubricants to use. you may need to sub some stuff out. follow the viscosity assuming that the old stuff is flushed out best, brandon paterno, he/him/they/them > On May 8, 2026, at 5:12 PM, Scott Dorsey <[email protected]> wrote: > > I will warn you to lubricate any old projectors before applying power. Look > for a cotton wick that keeps the oil constantly on the cam that moves the > pull-down claw. If that cam goes dry, it will be destroyed after a very > short operation, so lube that up with light machine oil or iso 32 turbine > oil. Also make sure everything else that is supposed to move is moving > cleanly. > > A lot of the cheaper Super-8 projectors used delrin bearings that are > made of a white plastic. It won't hurt to lube those with turbine oil > but it is probably not necessary. But just go around rotating things and > feeling them and making sure everything moves well, on top of the cam wick. > > For the cam and most bearings you can use Zoom-Spout oil from Ace Hardware, > or Mitchell Camera Oil. Any well-refined iso 32 machine oil will be fine. > --scott > > > -- > Frameworks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org -- Frameworks mailing list [email protected] https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org
