Aapo Lettinen

yes a leaf spring could help a bit but there is tons of other stuff with the camera which would require updating as well and after all that done there is basically no original parts in it anymore so not worth it by my opinion unless making some kind of youtube project to get the views instead of wanting a camera for actual filming. a crystal sync Kinor2m or Eclair NPR would be cheaper than getting enough custom mods on the K3 made to make it work for semi-pro stuff and even then the K3 would have weak gears and bearings and just would not last in use compared to a proper well made camera body. The Krasnogorsk cameras were originally made for Soviet amateur film club use, occasionally shooting a roll or two and they work for that kind of stuff perfectly well. Shoot tens of thousands of feets of film per month with it and you quickly end up it worn down and full of dust from the gears and bearings and so worn down pulldown that it can barely advance any film anymore. It tells a lot of the quality difference that I have some K1 and K2 cameras which I haven't used in like 10 years because they are just not worth the effort and time, last time I made some super heavy crude mods on one to see if it makes sense to hand crank them and then just lost interest before filming anything and threw it in the garage misc box again. It is interesting camera design but not very good for serious use unless you use it exactly like it was originally designed to be used for: with original lenses and spring drive and shooting some pickup shots here and there which will or will not be used as additional footage. Kinor with 100ft mag and my motor is not much larger than the Krasnogorsk and not that much heavier either. It is just that people want to buy a cheap cheap camera and then build on it to spend 10x the price on mods and accessories instead of spending 8x the price to get a better camera to begin with which has ball bearings and all other "proper stuff" in places where the difference matters

You would need to machine new gate and movement for it and likely change the pulldown design completely. Much cheaper to buy kinor or eclair which are much better cameras anyway. K3 is ok camera if it is cheap but endless modifications just make it super expensive entry level camera which costs like arri but has only 10% of the image quality

I am making a electronically stabilized (not crystal sync but should still be pretty good accuracy) speed controller for 15epss motors. It is basically a replacement for the original speed control box of these motors as it is getting hard to find the original boxes nowadays. I am making a as-simple-as-possible device with couple of speed presets and which works at 24 volts. No displays or anything fancy. The device is way smaller than the original konvas controller, I am intending using the same casing than my Eclair 16-speed and 12-speed controllers use so very compact. Price 450usd and should be finished in the next following months. It is needed to replace the motor connector with new different one and to internally connect the wires inside the motor handle differently so that the motor works at 24 volts instead of original 48 volts. This modification is simple enough to be user made but I can arrange it here too if needed. Let me know if wanting to order a controller like this. I have possibility to make crystal sync modification for 15epss too but they cost about a grand and most users don't need the features so wanting to see if this simple more affordable device would have use for them 🙂

I often get very depressed by trying to help people with their diy projects, that greatly affects my own work. I am trying to make something different than most people and have too much invested to not worry about anything or to give away stuff which I need the money back from to get food. Probably wont visit this thread later. Read the cp16r manual, it helps a bit with the research. Good luck with the project! ----- Kamran's motor seems to work pretty well. I personally usually test motors, among other tests, with TF930 frequency counter linked to gpsdo at 10s and 100s gate times to get really good idea about the real running speed and to have kind of scientific results rather than empirical stuff but if a motor holds the frame for many minutes then it is perfectly fine for sync sound stuff.

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There is two orders so far so this Aaton counter will advance at steady pace and will be shipping in approx. two months. If wanting to order one, please let me know this month, preferably before 15th Jan. so that I know how much parts to order. One of the circuit boards and the front panel are already in production and will receive them at some point mid January. If wanting to order this Aaton counter, please let me know in January 2025 by DM here or on IG. facebook messages are unreliable but might work too.

I will probably work on a completely new Bolex motor this Spring which works with 1:1 axle models if there is enough paid preorders to fund the project. it will be very high quality motor but rather expensive as well, around 1600usd or so. Basically it would have similar features than my ACL2025 crystal motor (15 or more crystal speeds, oled display with meters, cnc machined aluminium body, very high quality brushless motor drive, very accurate tcxo frequency reference, etc). Making this project possible depends on paid preorders as the machining and testing will become expensive and I have invested my own money on Eclair projects. But if someone is interested in ordering one, let me know (DM here or on IG. facebook messages are unreliable nowadays though might work too) . As said it will be around 1600usd and partially paid for beforehand, intended to be a very high-end Bolex motor option. (if needing something very affordable that cannot be made from scratch and would be necessary to use some original motor with Jason's controller instead)

Continuing work on the rod support base. I got a very basic 3d scanner now, helps modeling the shape of the rod support part when getting some kind of reference of the actual shape of the front of the camera, that round tilted surface is really hard to get right by measuring so saves lots of work to have even a super basic reference scan to use

"registering" means holding it still. If some movement would be adjusted by the technician to fall short and then move the final fraction with the pins that would be their choice but that is certainly not the only way "to do it correctly" to "be allowed to call it a reg pin". Most stable movements have the pins completely fixed and everything else moves around them. and more pins than one or two. different geometry needed then too. --------------- Here is what I talked about when calling the NPR's system "registration claw" rather than pin. It is heavily shaped and only stops movement by downward direction, nothing else. It also pops up before the pulldown claw has disengaged from the perf. So the idea is that the claw's upper surface stops the perf at predetermined position and then the pulldown can disengage. Kinor16cx-2m has this "real registration pin" which is very tightly fitting the perforation vertically. so it centers the film in up/down direction perfectly but is loosely fitting sideways so the lateral plate does all the work on horizontal direction. The pin engages slightly after the pulldown has retracted so it works very differently than the NPR's "claw"

My own ACL did not have a handle so I designed this thingy and got it cnc machined out of aluminium. Super heavy duty, even unnecessarily so (one could probably smash a brick wall to pieces with this without even scratching it much 😄 ) but it is pretty useful when wanting to have good balance with 400ft mags and tiny lens as the handle is intentionally very long to allow good grip near the balance point. I will probably wrap paracord around it to allow more comfortable grip when shooting in cold. for indoors use it is pretty good just as is and I added couple of 1/4 and 3/8 mounting points on top so that I can mount my 12-speed or 16-speed crystal controller on it 🙂 Let's see what kind of handle setups other people have on their cameras. Using just off-the-shelf Smallrig stuff or the original handle or something more custom?

shooting without filter and post correcting the balance has the disadvantage of potentially losing blue channel latitude because the blues become very dense and potentially difficult to scan the very brightest areas, so you may get burned/clipped/noisy highlights more easily. But it may be more practical to shoot without filters in some situations if filters are for some reason difficult to manage on-set (cleaning needs, reflections, not the right filter size available, etc). By my experience the end result is often not exactly the same (the extra amount of blue light easily creates additional in-lens reflections etc, the reds may be much thinner than would be optimal causing extra grain, etc) but it can be more than enough for most uses still. shooting without filters is common when wanting cool dusk/twilight look but if wanting to have normal or warm colours it may not be optimal to shoot with super cool blue look and then post correcting it (leading to underexposed reds and overexposed blues which you need to reverse in post prod to get anywhere near normal colours) if shooting without filters for normal or warm colours it should be rated 320 ISO and taken care not to ruin the highlights. if blue look is OK then 500 ISO rating would be fine

you will lose the 2/3 stops if converting the footage to proper colour balance, whether that is done in-camera with 85/85B filter or shooting without filter and correcting in telecine/scanning or in digital grading. if shooting without 85 filter and NOT correcting the colour balance then the approximate sensitivity is 500 ISO outdoors. but you will end up with blue-ish image. if wanting to correct to normal colours then you will need to lower the blue channel level and green slightly and end up with the approx. 320 ISO no matter how you do the colour balance correction

sorry I laughed, that sound was like the camera is mocking you 😄 like "BEEEEP WRONG BUTTON!!!" almost sounds like a small summer but such a noise can be made by mechanical or electrical parts too. Are you sure there is no one in Europe servicing them? often it is more about what it can cost rather than if there is anyone available or not, but can be wrong... making new electronics is always a possibility but not sure if it is worth it for Bolexes, would probably cost like 1.5k per camera and one would probably need to change the outer body shape/control panel a little to make it work best so it would not look the same than the original. If you would have like three cameras then might make sense to build new electronics. Otherwise probably more practical to try to repair

MOTOR SOLD! so the 2-speed and 10-speed motors are sold out now. if you would still need a motor for the ACL camera, please consider my "ACL2025" motor model, I am still collecting orders for a month or two and it is very advanced model with lots of crystal speeds, oled display with counters, cnc machined aluminium body, works at 12v, is compact and lightweight and does not need any original ACL electronics just like my other motors. the 2025 model is 1600usd.

make sure that the accessories like displays, evf, memory cards, etc. are fully working and in good condition so that if the camera body itself is NG you can keep the accessories and buy another body which is working correctly. The oldest available Reds are like 15 to 17 years old and one really cannot expect a medium-quality camera to last even that long, so it is cool if it is working correctly and surprising if you get more than some two or three years of lifetime on it before it breaks completely beyond repair. If talking about the slightly newer ones, less than 10 years old then it might have some more years on the hood if lucky. I would get a kit which has good perfectly working accessories and then an additional camera body just in case. And make sure that you can still use the cameras if the single available original touchscreen display breaks. people are selling a lot of old "brain-only" Red cameras, it is because they purchased single accessories but had a spare brain because they tended to break often. So there is more brains available than vital accessories to make them working, especially on oldest dsmc models, and if buying only the brain you may never find a display and memory cards and reader to make it working. so first ensure you have all the necessary accessories secured before buying brain-only deals, otherwise the lone brain is just a paperweight which cannot record anything ever

and being a spare camera it probably sits safely inside its pelican case most of the time so it is not exposed to elements and rough handling the same way than the main camera actually used for filming. Which makes it "more reliable" because it was in mint condition almost never been used until the main camera broke down 😄

switches, displays and connectors tend to be the most vulnerable part of camera's electronics so reducing their amount tend to make a camera more reliable in general. It still has lots of electronics inside but the exposed easy-to-break outer parts are reduced to minimum so that it "does not break as easily" 🙂

Npr has this pin-like reqistration claw which mostly stops film movement to one direction. So it steadies it but not as perfectly as a real pin. Cameras like Arri and Kinor16 have real reg pins. Old before end-of-80s 16mm cameras have larger tolerances overall than 90s and 2000s cameras because 16mm stock spec tolerances were tightened in 80s which allowed making better fitting tight tolerance film channels on cameras

Ebay sellers will try everything with the prices and some prices are ridiculous but they are a bit more expensive nowadays in any case as the 16s is the lowest priced usable semipro 16mm camera available if not wanting the much larger and heavier eclairNpr (which is better camera specs wise though) . So they are worth a grand in good condition because the lower priced ones are not correctly working. The ebay sellers have their ridiculous rating system on lenses, "excellent+++++++++++" still has rust, fungus and scratches so those ratings mean nothing and one can only evaluate by the pictures. We will finish a 16s crystal motor pretty soon, it is entirely different concept than Kamran's so different user base I think. Will release details sometime later.

Two devices would cost about 3000usd including shipping, would have roughly similar style features than the Advanced version of my NPR motor (though don't know if shutter parking can be made, would need to see the camera first). The camera would need to be sent here for at least couple of months for testing. I can make single ones too but the price would be the same so at least the two would need to be ordered. Possible extra ones would be cheaper then (between 1000 and 1200). I would basically develop the controller at the same time with my NPR motor to stay in the budget, otherwise it would be too expensive to make (over 10k). This also necessitates that the controller project would start in the next two or three months so that I can schedule it correctly with the NPR project. If you would only have original schematics and you would need to hire someone to draw new circuit boards, get them made, assembled and tested, it would easily cost 3k or more and the end result would in any case have less features and be less accurate than my newly made controller. Typically if you don't have original printable circuit board masks available it is almost the same amount of work to just do it from scratch instead without copying original schematics. Of course if you can draw the boards by yourself so that no need to pay for someone else, then it could be cheaper but if hiring someone then it is tons of work which still needs to be paid for and in that case I would personally just make completely new devices instead

Still one Advanced ACL motor available. Would prefer selling it before Christmas to gain resources for other projects! 1200usd including shipping. 20 crystal speeds from 16fps to 66fps, a basic footage counter from 0 to 99ft, variable speed from about 8fps to about 70 or 80fps. Top framerates need 18v battery but you can use this motor with a 14.4v battery up to 25 or 30fps crystal and about 40 to 50fps variable speed. If needed, it is possible to reserve the motor for 30% of the purchase price and pay the rest in Spring before shipping.