Potential QC Issue with the new Kodak plastic 30.5m daylight spool.

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

Hi,

This is completely anecdotal and hopefully not something that is widespread.

I lost one 2.8m segment of my shooting (the entire roll basically) on 500T AHU, but with the new plastic spools.

What happened was that the film "spaggethied" inside the camera (K3).

From my experience this usually happens (assuming loading is correct and without errors) when the take-up spool is not taking the film in the right way for some reason, some obstruction, or generally something preventing the smooth movement of the take-up system.

After doing approximately twenty tests with multiple daylight spools, both using the metal and older plastic ones, the culprit was the construction of the plastic spool itself and more specifically its straightness and how easy it was to release or take film - It kept "catching" on the outer edges of the spool. I tested with same film stock and all other variables were excluded,

This manifested with erratic "load out" when it was full with film stock. I know because the camera sounded weird when it was being used and clearly visible on my tests and a guaranteed blockage (spaghetti) when used as a take-up spool. I pulled the outer edges with a lot power and that seemed to mitigate the effect a little, but still this spool needs to go the garbage can.

The other thing that I have noticed is that the spool requires alot more force to insert and that means you need to be more careful, but at the very least this is not a real problem.

I've already used 400' of the new plastic ones without issue so, I hope it was a one-off.

I sent my report to Kodak reps in Europe.

Thankfully I was able to re-shoot the interview parts that were lost.

 

 

Edited May 24 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[Tyler Purcell]

Seems to only be an issue with K3's and Beaulieu's. I haven't heard much from the Bolex and Canon Scoopic groups, so they may not have issues. The K3 has those little raised circles on the door which are designed to prevent slop, same with the Beaulieu's. I assume that's where the issue is. On the Beaulieu's, you can just tap the indent down as it's just pop metal. On the K3's it's part of the door, so it would have to be machined back to solve the problem. Not a big deal but probably needs to be done. 

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

11 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

The K3 has those little raised circles on the door which are designed to prevent slop, same with the Beaulieu's. I assume that's where the issue is.

No, it's the spool itself, the issue manifests whether the door is open or not, you can actually reproduce it on a table with no camera, has nothing to do with where it is. The film "jumps" while trying to wrap it self in the insides of the spool.

It's the plastic construction.

 

 

Edited May 24 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[Tyler Purcell]

22 minutes ago, Aristeidis Tyropolis said:

No, it's the spool itself, the issue manifests whether the door is open or not, you can actually reproduce it on a table with no camera, has nothing to do with where it is. The film "jumps" while trying to wrap it self in the insides of the spool.

 

Ohh something else then what everyone else is reporting, whoops. That's no good at all. Thanks for the report! Send a video along if you can show everyone. 

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

It was really weird, the plastic seemed completely warped and uneven when seen up close. No matter how many times I tried the film would "catch" on the outward plastic sides. 

Finally, I pulled its sides it ultra hard outward almost to breakage and the issue was almost completely gone, will try again with a video, I hope I didn't "fix" it accidentally.

This was some kind of weird plastic deformation, very unusual and did not exist on my other new Kodak plastic pools. I have a shoot next week with more of these, it will be an entirely different batch so let's see, I will be more vigilant. Overall they are alot more quiet but I find them annoying to use honestly.

This is one (of the various) reasons I buy film at different times and not always from the same source.

Edited May 24 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[George Hill]

I really don’t like the plastic spools. They fit on the spindles of my Arri 16S/B crazy tight, which is good in a way I guess but it’s not like there was an issue with the metal ones being too loose. It just makes loading the film harder, the metal ones slip right on. When taking a roll off it’s very easy to bend the spool a bit because of how tight it is which obviously exposes the film to more light, which kinda defeats the purpose of a daylight spool right? Also somewhat related, the last roll of film I shot I was using a non-Kodak plastic spool for the take up and it was much harder to get the film to grab in the little slot, I had to put a fold at the end of it which I’ve never had to do on a metal spool, but not before losing about 30ft of film that failed to wind onto the take up spool. That was obviously a bit of a mistake on my part but still, the metal spools just seem better in every way and I’m sad they are going away

[Tyler Purcell]

17 minutes ago, George Hill said:

the metal spools just seem better in every way and I’m sad they are going away

Are they going away or did they just have a vendor issue temporarily? 

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

5 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

5 hours ago, George Hill said:

 

Are they going away or did they just have a vendor issue temporarily? 

According to Kodak metal spools are over I think, this is what we're gonna get now.

5 hours ago, George Hill said:

They fit on the spindles of my Arri 16S/B crazy tight

I have the same complaint, it doesn't feel right to me and stresses me a bit when I am mid shoot.

[Aapo Lettinen]

The old Soviet plastic spools often coming with Krasnogorsk packages are often warped and nasty and do this catching thing if used on takeup. 

New Foma spools often work OK, probably because the flanges are thin and the possible warp would just correct itself more easily. 

Have not tested the new Kodak ahu loaded spools yet but warping can be an issue with plastic spools and for that matter metal ones too if they get damaged. Plastic ones can be warped out of factory because they are generally always garbage. But on feed side they should pretty much always work fine.

If having lots of issues, I recommend using old metal spools on takeup side and then either requesting they back from the lab, or respooling the exposed film in darkroom after the shoot to get the metal spool back to use. I often use the factory plastic spool on feed, the metal spool on takeup, after the shoot rewinding the exposed rolls in darkroom to cores or bare rolls, put them in the black plastic bags, to film can and sending to lab. No spool sent at all, just the coreless film roll like one would get from collapsible core Arri SR magazine

[George Hill]

4 hours ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

If having lots of issues, I recommend using old metal spools on takeup side and then either requesting they back from the lab, or respooling the exposed film in darkroom after the shoot to get the metal spool back to use. I often use the factory plastic spool on feed, the metal spool on takeup, after the shoot rewinding the exposed rolls in darkroom to cores or bare rolls, put them in the black plastic bags, to film can and sending to lab. No spool sent at all, just the coreless film roll like one would get from collapsible core Arri SR magazine

All great advice but I feel like this kind of defeats the purpose of the daylight spool, which is to be user friendly and not require a darkroom right? I will probably start requesting the metal spools back from the lab though 

[Mark Dunn]

28 minutes ago, George Hill said:

All great advice but I feel like this kind of defeats the purpose of the daylight spool, which is to be user friendly and not require a darkroom right? I will probably start requesting the metal spools back from the lab though 

Point being that the supply of metal spools has ended as of now. So if you have them, you need a way of hanging on to them. Labs are going to have to get used to returning them.

[Brandon Paterno]

17 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

On the Beaulieu's, you can just tap the indent down as it's just pop metal. On the K3's it's part of the door, so it would have to be machined back to solve the problem. Not a big deal but probably needs to be done. 

polishing the flat/contact parts of the raised indents helps a bit too. 

spitballing a bit but the spring and ball bearings on the feed and takeup shafts aren't the strongest (nothing like the force of the similar parts on something like a Bolex) so I worry that random axial play could deviate far too much with those indents flattened -- but on the other hand I think an event where force would knock a spool free while running to the point that the film would "jump the track" at the sprockets is slim. But without those indents it the spool won't really self correct properly

[Robin Phillips]

does kodak R&D not have a hand full of common 16mm cameras to test these things? seeing lots of complaints elsewhere about them, it seems odd that they'd make a fairly large change like this without robust testing. or, in the alternate, just upping the price on the 100ft spools by a few bucks to cover extra metal material costs

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

2 hours ago, Robin Phillips said:

does kodak R&D not have a hand full of common 16mm cameras to test these things?

I think we are all kind of beta testing those (such is the era we live in today) and I feel that as a design it's not how it should be.

I suspect we'll get another design next year if the complaints pile up.

[Tyler Purcell]

2 hours ago, Robin Phillips said:

does kodak R&D not have a hand full of common 16mm cameras to test these things? seeing lots of complaints elsewhere about them, it seems odd that they'd make a fairly large change like this without robust testing. or, in the alternate, just upping the price on the 100ft spools by a few bucks to cover extra metal material costs

The way Kodak operates, I have a feeling they really don't test much. 

[Jon O'Brien]

Not much to report so far, as I've just had processed my first 100 ft roll of 16mm AHU stock and am awaiting the scan.

No problems with the plastic spool but sure it was only one so far ....

I had a roll of 16mm 'spaghetti' inside a Bolex a couple of years back. Remjet stock of course, with a metal take up spool. I always very carefully now check my takeup spools when loading. Get out the magnifying specs, roll along a perfectly flat table surface and watch like a hawk as it rolls along ... (Simon here at C.com taught me that one).