Looking for 60 Hz crystal sync generator

[Alain LeTourneau]

Please help if you can, we are in need of a 60 Hz crystal sync generator (preferably with a 1/4" out, but any connector will do as we can make the required cable if necessary). The device we had on order has been further delayed, and we needed this item yesterday.

 

I realize The Film Group makes these, however their turnaround time is 2 weeks, which too late for our use.

 

If you have a 60 Hz crystal sync generator you are willing to sell, or one you can loan/rent to us for 60 days, then please get in contact with us.

 

 

Thanks,

Alain

[Hal Smith]

If you have a 60 Hz crystal sync generator you are willing to sell, or one you can loan/rent to us for 60 days, then please get in contact with us.

Alain

 

If you can put up with a rack sized piece of equipment, any synthesized audio generator from companies like Agilent/Hewlett Packard, Tektronix, and Audio Precision will be crystal controlled with accuracies many times more accurate than what's required for film.

 

You probably have a commercial test equipment rental company not too far from you. A good place to start looking for leads is to look in the Yellow Pages for a calibration company, they'll either also be in the rental business or know who is in the Portland area.

[John Sprung]

A question: Is this sync generator going on the sound side or the camera? If it's for sound, you may be able to get by with being hard wired to the local utility grid, and just rig something up using a doorbell transformer and a couple resistors for a voltage divider. Next question, is the utility's 60 Hz accurate enough? Mostly they're a lot better now than back when I was doing this in the 1970's - 80's. They may be crystal accurate, you'd have to test. Even if they're fairly sloppy, like +/- 0.1%, you'd still be able to do a 20 second take before drifting half a frame.

 

If you need it without a hard wire, that's strangely a much more difficult problem. Such boxes were a stock rental item back in the day, but now they're an antique. You might try both camera and sound rental companies to see if they may have kept one.

 

I don't think that the Ambient Lockit box outputs anything other than 12M time code and audio sample clocks, but there might be a way to do what you want with time code instead. That's a readily available rental item.

 

 

 

-- J.S.