16mm Split Reel Designs (400ft)

[Kamran Pakseresht]

As part of my growing mission to make it simpler and more affordable to shoot on film - I whipped up a 16mm split reel design yesterday that can be easily 3D printed. I have a whole fridge full of Fuji 16mm film that I finally decided to break down into some smaller reels and having a 400ft split reel made it very simple. 

You can download the files here. You probably will need to flip one of them 180 degrees on the X-axis in your printing software. 0.1 mm layer height is best for the threads. On my Bambu Labs X1C it takes ~2 hours per side. Uses about 111 grams of filament so rather affordable if you're printing yourself.

As always my Onshape work is totally public - so you can very easily modify this if you want to make a smaller or larger reel - here is the link.

This pairs really nicely with the Short 16mm Film Rewind designs on thingiverse here, which I use for my setup (just double side taped them down to this ikea cutting board which fits nicely into my film changing tent)



And for those curious - I just ran 100ft of respooled Fuji 64d that I had been storing in a fridge for the last 12 years through my Beaulieu R16. Developed in a Morse tank and it came out great (rated it at ~25 iso)

Here are some close-ups of the reels:

 

[David Sekanina]

this is wonderful, I love that you mounted it on a cutting board 🤩

[Jon O'Brien]

6 hours ago, Kamran Pakseresht said:

As part of my growing mission to make it simpler and more affordable to shoot on film - I whipped up a 16mm split reel design yesterday that can be easily 3D printed ...
 

Bravo! Well done.

I already have one, an old rewind assembly that a friend gave me. He used to be a cinema projectionist. I haven't used it yet. Great idea to save money. Each dollar saved is a dollar earned.

[Gautam Valluri]

Excellent work Kamran! Thanks for sharing.

You could perhaps consider putting this up on https://sixteenmillimeter.com/

and perhaps also on https://www.filmlabs.org/

to reach a wider user base...

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 2/27/2024 at 2:13 PM, Kamran Pakseresht said:

As part of my growing mission to make it simpler and more affordable to shoot on film - I whipped up a 16mm split reel design yesterday that can be easily 3D printed. I have a whole fridge full of Fuji 16mm film that I finally decided to break down into some smaller reels and having a 400ft split reel made it very simple. 

You can download the files here. You probably will need to flip one of them 180 degrees on the X-axis in your printing software. 0.1 mm layer height is best for the threads. On my Bambu Labs X1C it takes ~2 hours per side. Uses about 111 grams of filament so rather affordable if you're printing yourself.

As always my Onshape work is totally public - so you can very easily modify this if you want to make a smaller or larger reel - here is the link.

This pairs really nicely with the Short 16mm Film Rewind designs on thingiverse here, which I use for my setup (just double side taped them down to this ikea cutting board which fits nicely into my film changing tent)



And for those curious - I just ran 100ft of respooled Fuji 64d that I had been storing in a fridge for the last 12 years through my Beaulieu R16. Developed in a Morse tank and it came out great (rated it at ~25 iso)

Here are some close-ups of the reels:

 

 

 

Beautiful!

[Gregg MacPherson]

On 2/28/2024 at 8:13 AM, Kamran Pakseresht said:

... I whipped up a 16mm split reel design yesterday that can be easily 3D printed.........
This pairs really nicely with the Short 16mm Film Rewind designs on thingiverse here, which I use for my setup (just double

Hey, well done.  A thought on the rewinds...Most old ones had simple gears enclosed that gave quite a high rewind speed. Very useful.  Not sure on the ratio, guessing maybe 3 or 4 to 1. You could make all that with your 3D printer maybe. Steel for the shafts and spindles. The gear teeth would be quite coarse.

 

[Kamran Pakseresht]

6 hours ago, Gregg MacPherson said:

Hey, well done.  A thought on the rewinds...Most old ones had simple gears enclosed that gave quite a high rewind speed. Very useful.  Not sure on the ratio, guessing maybe 3 or 4 to 1. You could make all that with your 3D printer maybe. Steel for the shafts and spindles. The gear teeth would be quite coarse.

 

That actually sounds like a fun project - I might give that one a shot 

[Dirk DeJonghe]

Have you thought about making Aaton Minima 200ft reels? They are plastic, left and right sides are identical, with a core in the middle. 

They are nearly impossible to find. I can supply one if you want, or someone in the US.

This would be a very useful and fun project that would make you many friends around the world.

[Kamran Pakseresht]

3 hours ago, Dirk DeJonghe said:

Have you thought about making Aaton Minima 200ft reels? They are plastic, left and right sides are identical, with a core in the middle. 

They are nearly impossible to find. I can supply one if you want, or someone in the US.

This would be a very useful and fun project that would make you many friends around the world.

I actually have thought about something very similar. I would like to make 200ft split reels for my eclair ACL - just to make spooling up 200ft cores simpler. 

if I could get my hands on one of these, I’d be more than happy to put up the designs for it - I’m not sure how they work differently from a split reel (do these ones open up in the same way?) - does the A-minima require these reels or can the A-minima use simple cores as well?

[Dirk DeJonghe]

The A-Minima has very specific spools, unlike any other camera. You only need two parts, the center core and the flange, identical left or right.

I had about 50 spools in stock, they were all sold by us with fresh filmstock and processing and scanning included. Not one has been returned for processing since several years, the empty spools are apparently worth more than the filmstock, processing and scanning (roughly 150€ each). This is a pity for the A-Minima owners who want to use their nice camera and can't find the spools anymore;

 

[Kamran Pakseresht]

I just ordered one on ebay - I'll try and get some designs made for them once they arrive - hopefully I can send a couple to some users on here to test as I don't have an a-minima myself.

[Dirk DeJonghe]

I am sure there are a couple of A-Minima owners in the US who would want to test your prototype.