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Yet Another NPR Motor


Duncan Brown

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This guy shows a staggering number of different motors available for the NPR:   http://www.tfgtransfer.com/motors.htm

Well I recently stumbled across one that isn't exactly any of those...though maybe it was an early prototype of the Tobin TXM-14.  Or maybe a clone of it?  If I google the Tobin NPR motor no two I find are the same, so the product definitely went through some evolution!  But mine is the least polished of them all.  Crudely hand-cut holes in the plastic case for connectors, that sort of thing. It has an Optical Electro House sticker on it, but I think that's just because they serviced this camera (from other clues I found), not because they made the motor.

(As an aside, from what I've read about Optical Electro House, Eclair owners are far worse off for that guy having retired years ago - anyone know if someone picked up his parts and tools and knowledge?)

I'll start with a picture of the real Tobin motor I stole from the internet, then in additional posts I'll add pictures of my motor to compare.  It seems to work flawlessly, and might actually be even lighter than the Alcan, though certainly not as elegant looking.  It's just a wedge shaped box.

Duncan

 

tobin_txm_14.png

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Oh, and assuming that milliframe controller is accurate, it proves that tachometer app I have on my phone is dead on!  The controller goes to 3 places after the decimal point and the app only does two, but they match up precisely.  (When using the tachometer app to dial in on the speed of the camera mirror while running on the milliframe controller.)

Duncan

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  • 2 weeks later...
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I just noticed that the (plastic?) main case looks exactly like the Perfectone Compact motor!  Did Tobin borrow one of those to experiment with?  Originally source their cases from Perfectone so as not to incur duplicative engineering costs?  Or did Perfectone mess around with making a motor that would take the Tobin controller?  Very curious.  Anyone have one of those that they could take more pictures of?  Clearly the Perfectone has a LOT more going on on the side panel than this one, but the red light and the button are in the right places.  Would be interesting to see if the bottom surface matches up.

Duncan

 

perfectone-compact-motor-eclair-npr_1_3b3f6a84371f84a4bc85490f44a585d9.jpeg

Edited by Duncan Brown
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  • 7 months later...

Hi Duncan, I'm not sure your motor is a Tobin model.  I would think it's an OEH model which may have been modified to accept the Tobin Miliframe controler ( a much more recent design).  The controler, I believe, only sends a crystal signal to the motor, so it would be easy to wire the special (fiddly) Tobin female connector to any motor designed to receive an externale synch signal. 

As for the Perfectone Compact motor, it's a different beast altogether, and an older design (although it was their second design for the NPR).  Their casing was definitely metallic and I suspect the company was not around when OEH and later Tobin copied their fairly obvious design (from an era before copyright infringement madness).

Here's some info on the Perfectone Compact :

Perfectone motor 000 copy.jpg

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