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Yes it is more likely to get a OK condition not-recently-serviced older N16 camera for that price. The closest candidates would probably be the Eclair NPR and Eclair ACL. If you need a new motor or something repaired or full cla then it likely goes over the budget. If you are willing to make repairs to the camera by yourself then it might be possible to get something not fully serviced and manage with it with relatively low costs. But if in any way possible it would be wise to up your budget to at least 3k so that even if choosing a older camera you can still afford getting it serviced and maybe even S16 converted if budget allows. Eclairs have pretty good price-performance ratio and quite perfect for low budget indie use. Are noisier than Arri SR or Aatons but much cheaper and mechanically well made and are possible to convert to S16 with good results

Ordered the rest of the components now so the batch size is locked. I will make 4 motors total of which 2 are of the "Main version" external box ones and two are of the "built-in" version of which one is for my own use. All of these motors are already reserved and partially paid for and will be sent to the customers as soon as they are finished. I will likely assemble one or two extra control boxes if I have enough time and parts available, so if someone is interested in ordering one of the "Main version" controllers later in December it should be possible though has much longer delivery time of about 4 weeks. Price is the same 1100usd +shipping, just takes longer to deliver because I will only order the expensive bldc motor and connection parts if the order is actually paid for to avoid stocking expensive parts unnecessarily

this is not the traditional "Fix It In Post" approach, it is rather the "Save It In Post To Make It Somewhat Watchable" method 😄 The difference to the older days "heavy post grading" is that the end product does not necessarily have high contrast at all. Just like the Indiana Jones trailer, the contrast is not particularly high in the final product but one can definitely see that it has been heavily corrected from shot to shot for them to be balanced compared to each other. One can see it on the Babylon trailer too. one possible explanation would be that it is a trend to use heavily motivated "practical sources based" lighting nowadays which leads to higher variations in source footage and thus one needs lots of post grading to make it even somewhat balanced in the end product. If you compare to the late 90's /early 2000's movies they definitely look like "overlit" compared to anything shot after about 2009 or so. The big soft low angle side light of the 90's/early 2000's is gone and everything went more motivated, higher variance, somewhat underlit and yes, occasionally much lower contrast too. One could see this as the big shows drifting more and more towards low budget indie in terms of time and effort used for each shot and scene. As well it having become a norm to try to hide the fact that you have lit the scene and thus trying to make it look "too natural" and "less cinematic" in a way

I think minimalistic lighting has been a trend for a while. This shows in the movies having a bit "rough" look because the contrast is manipulated a lot in post grading. I don't mean they necessarily leave the scenes unlit, but rather it being so much easier to light with modern fixtures and sensitive high performance cameras that it is "not necessary to finesse everything on set" and it definitely shows. They leave higher contrast variations to the raw materials and they are then later tried to be corrected to the same level in grading which leaves some unavoidable imperfections and characteristic contrast and dynamic range issues smoothed out by heavy grading. The end product is not necessarily super high contrast but the heavy post smoothing of the contrast definitely shows. So, one could call it underlit and overgraded I think? It helps to save the budget and fund the excessive vfx work most shows need so it is understandable. Adding more budget does not necessarily help, they would just use it for buying more and better VFX rather than fix the on-set lighting

I usually try to remove glue residue from labels etc. using isopropanol as it is commonly used when cleaning various devices when they are manufactured so most paints tolerate it quite well. Of course not guaranteeing it would work on that specific glue residue and not taking any responsibility if it damages something, but it may be worth trying carefully on that residue spot I think if wanting the aesthetics of the item restored 🙂 as if it works, it will likely take all the residue away and likely does nothing on the paint other than just making it even cleaner looking than before. I often like to wipe used film cameras and lenses with isopropanol before starting to use them because if the lens or camera is old the solvent is able to take decades worth of grease and dirt off and make them look like almost brand new

as for the low resistance, I'm guessing the 3ohm reading was when power was completely off and battery removed? transistors and fets can short to "closed" position if overheated which might be something happening here. Just guessing because not being very familiar with the SR electronics but in cameras like this, whether with a brushed or brushless motor, the motor speed is controlled using one or more FETs or transistors in series with the motor winding(s). If the transistor/fet would short the power would go though the motor winding all the time which in brushed motor would lead the motor to run continously at full speed and with brushless leading to the motor overheating and burning. caps can of course short easily too and if a design has varistors they are common suspects too. That is one possible explanation but someone more familiar with SR electronics can guess better 🙂

normally one tries to leave a tiny piece of "guide rail" on the left side of the gate to support the film from the other side. This is not possible with all gates but milling that part completely off often results in localised scratching of the frame edge. Can't see clearly if there is anything left of the left side rail but I'm guessing it is pretty much gone

To me it seems that in some weird way, digital cinematography , modern technology like drones and brushless gimbals, and led lighting techniques have managed to ruin the film industry for the most part. It sounds weird yes but somehow making too high performance technology which is too easy to use makes people stop caring about the end product anymore and to take shortcuts which make lots of practical sense but lead to the end product being lazily made and mediocre. Not in every production of course but it is insanely common nowadays to take these shortcuts because they make lots of practical sense and help save the budget and make the life of the crew easier (which leads it becoming the common norm very quickly). I make these 'easy and lazy decisions' too and often hate the end result. Get the job done with limited resources but the artform suffers I think and this same stuff plagues the whole industry nowadays, often making "real movies" indistinquishable from mid budget tv series. So the thing which will kill cinema will be the mediocrity. That is what we should fight against I think.

Taking the last orders now when needing to order the last components for the manufacturing batch next week to get them in time. I will only assemble the amount of motors which are pre ordered so there will be no extra ones available later and it is likely to lose the opportunity to get one then. Let me know before December 1st if wanting to order a ACL motor from the first batch. We can discuss about the details by DM and I will showcase what the motor will be. You can contact me even if not being able to fully pay for the motor right now. If at least the 300usd deposit can be paid for to cover most of the material costs, it is possible for me to assemble your motor in the December batch and then wait with it until you have a possibility to get the rest of the purchase price paid 🙂 Deposit is 300usd with the total motor price 1100usd + shipping costs.

I think the "golden age" of modern filmmaking was in the end of 90's and the start of 2000's. After about 2010 it has been constant downfall with some rare exceptions and the Marvel flicks and Netflix stuff have accelerated it even more as there is not much "real movies" made anymore which are original content instead of being a part of some kind of series or being marketing material for other stuff

I think there is one or two EBM motors on eBay at the moment if they are compatible with the OP's camera. My bolex is so old that it cannot be used with a motor so don't know about the compatibility stuff. As an update to my previous posts, I don't have time and resources to build any kind of motor modifications for the Bolex cameras. I don't have time for a project like that anymore but I lack the money too because it is spent on other projects and I would need to purchase a newer generation Bolex for a project like this which is way too expensive to happen (including the spare parts needed would go over 2k easily for me plus the possible cnc machining costs which would be at least a grand). It is impossible to make a crystal motor for a camera without having at least one camera of the same model available for at least half a year and I am not going to buy any new cameras in the next two years so the Bolex motor is not gonna happen. Jason, do you have any interest in modifying the older generation Bolex motors to crystal sync (those very basic motors which are easily available and affordable like under 100usd, for example the MC17 model and similar ones) ? There has been some interest towards these and if you have a suitable camera to test them with, then it should be possible to make a kickstarter or similar to fund the project. Should be handy for those people looking for a budget crystal 16mm camera package because there is very little original crystal capable motors available for Bolexes anymore

got a batch of the first front panel version for the "Main" controller (aka "the external control box version"). No switches, screen protector glass or the finishing lacquer yet. The screen is of the same size than the final will be, the edge will just be masked to look nice and to hide the gap. Looks pretty promising by my opinion. The panel is made of aluminium and is very durable.

Changed plans on the possible "Updated 2023 version" of the ACL controller. It is very likely that the "expensive version" would never get enough orders to make it financially possible to make (would need to collect from 10k to 15k to be able to start the project because of the amount of custom cnc machining needed which makes the starting costs high. and the individual controllers would cost from 1600 to 2000usd a piece) and thus I am sceptical if there will ever be any "better and updated more expensive version" of this controller, OR if there even will be another batch made of this first 16-speed version after the December2022 batch. I will likely have a simpler "built-in" version of the ACL controller available sometime later, maybe next year, which does not have any display at all and has a traditional 12-position rotary switch for selecting crystal speeds. This system can use the existing circuit boards I already have and is a little bit cheaper than the original "built-in" version. I think this style of version is what some users are expecting from an ACL motor (really simple, very fast to use, no extra features at all, no displays or menus to "complicate things") so it is possible that I will make something like that next year if having enough time and money available.

yes sealed lead acid (gel, agm, etc) work perfectly with film cameras and they can usually supply so much current if needed that one does not need to worry about it in any shooting situation if the voltage is just right for the application. It is very easy to make a adapter cable to get 4-pin XLR on them so I would not worry if a battery does not have the xlr originally installed as it is easy to make xlr cable for it even at home and it costs only couple of bucks to do. Use a good quality xlr connector like Neutrik though, the Chinese cheap xlr's are not good and have play/fit very loosely which is frustrating in a power connector. The Neutrik or other good quality ones are precise and fit firmly without any play and are not exactly expensive for a good quality connector so it is a no brainer to get a good quality connector for this use. I would be wary with used batteries as it is pretty easy to permanently damage lead acid battery (and most other batteries too) by leaving it in storage for a long time with low charge so that the battery will be drained out completely sitting in the storage for months/years. That is relatively common with typically irregularly used camera batteries, people may have not shot footage with the camera in years and the used externally good looking battery may be completely unusable for having stored empty for so long (no one generally remembers to regularly load and refresh camera batteries if having a long break shooting their material and they just forget about it having so much other stuff to do) so I would get a completely new lead acid battery instead if in any way possible because, well, they are so cheap that it costs the same than a used one. The XLR cable can be arranged easily and should not determine the purchase decision by my opinion 🙂

I CHANGED THIS 1-SPEED CP16R CONTROLLER TO BE A SPECIAL ORDER PRODUCT because there hasn't been much interest towards it. This means that I will only assemble them per actual orders to save time and resources to do other projects. I have parts to make about 10 - 15 installation kits total and I pre-assembled some circuit boards to make them quicker to finish when needed. Finishing a kit takes from 2 to 3 weeks and I will usually wait to have at least two orders before starting to assemble them. So it can take from 1 to 2 months + shipping time to get a kit if you need one. I try to keep one pre-assembled kit in storage which I can ship relatively quickly but not guaranteed 🙂