Sondor Filmscanner

[Randy J Tomlinson]

Hi everyone,

 

Today i visited a Friend who has been in our Industry for a long time. He mentioned he once did telecine film professionally. During our conversation i found out he still has a lot of his machines down in his basement sitting around and do nothing. Cutting a long story short, we went down to have a look and OMG :o it was like "Heaven". He had 4 original sondor filmscanner, a bit dusty, yet working.

 

I immedialtely start negotiating for one machine and he actually agreed to give me one for a butterbread (like really, really, really cheap!!)

Unfortunately he was only willing to give me a "Sound Unit", a machine which has no optical parts to "Scan" film, rather than a few magnet heads to "Record" sound onto a developed film. However, i believe that is not very much of a problem as the machine is built up similar like the scanner, with sprocket spool on a step motor, tension controll etc. As an electronic freak i believe i will be able to develop the electronics for the step motor which would allow me to Forward->Stop a Film in a specific position and make picture after picture.

I really need to think about it.

 

Question: If i let the machine run slowly, like 1 picture a second, and make a picture with a camera without stopping the movement of the film, HOW FAST should i set the shutterspeed to prevent blur? Let's say i use a very bright LED light behind the Film and the camera is set to 800 ISO. Would a 50th of a second be enough?

 

Because: If that would work i could use a little switch attached on the correct possition of the sprocket wheel to release the shutter of the camera, a mechanical solution.

 

If that doesn't work i would let the electronic stop the step motor in each frame and then do the picture.

 

Let's see if i can get some smart Ideas from you Boys :)

 

Randy

 

btw, he gave me tons of paperwork for the machine to study at home. i have electronic schematics for the whole thing.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Randy J Tomlinson

[Andrew Wise]

I would avoid modifying it that might damage it. These machines would be very useful to keep to digitise magnetic audio on film. 

It’s not too difficult to build a scanner from scratch like a moviestuff scanner

[Perry Paolantonio]

I agree with Andrew. Leave this for what it is, which is a pretty good machine. If you're interested in selling it, let me know. Or trading - I've got actual film scanners if you want to fiddle around with making your own. What sound heads does this have?

I wouldn't mod this one, to be honest. it's probably more hassle than it's worth, and it would be a shame to damage this machine if it's in working order. There's a lot more involved than you may think to building your own, so if you're going to do it, start with an actual film transport and work from there. It'll be a lot easier (he said from ongoing, painful experience)

[Robert Houllahan]

Yeah that is a really nice sound reproducer and would take allot of work to hack into a scanner.

If he has the Sondor scanner it would be the better bet to mod into a newer faster scanner system.