Ruben Arce

I think you should watch this video, you are confused and explaining at that extent would take a long time. There are some other very good videos on YouTube that may give you some more info so you can ask more concrete questions if you still have them.

I'm going to reply to my own post just to leave this information here for people trying to find info about this motor in the future. A gentleman gave me a clue on a facebook group, he told me the Pailard motor for the Bolex speeds up as you apply more power to the motor. I noticed the cable that came with the Steven Camera Drive motor that I have has 4 connectors, which suggested you can add more batteries or power, the connectors are connected in series which means it's adding power, so I tried applying power to the motor and I noticed that it was running slow when I applied 12v and tried to run the camera at 24fps, so I added another 12v battery and I was able to tell just by listening that the camera was running faster than at 24fps. I read on the Bolex Collector website that this motor was capable of delivering 8fps, 16fps, 24fps and 32fps. My conclusion is you need: - 6 v for 8fps - 12v for 16fps - 18v for 24fps - 24v for 32 fps. The motor speeds up and the governor that the Bolex has takes it to a speed closer than the one you chose. This is not a crystal sync motor as you can imagine, but it's a good addition to a Bolex package. The thicker connector on the batteries side is the positive. I tried using modern knowledge to try to deduct which wire was the positive one, but it was actually the other way around. I'm glad I didn't burn the motor and now someone else looking in the future can use this info to make the motor work.

Can you guys provide some information about this motor? I got it with a camera and I couldn't find any information online. It's a Stevens Camera Drive Model 16 made by Stevens Engineering Co. The Bollex Collector website has a pic that I copied and it says the motor can run at 16,24 and 32fps forward and reverse, it's on the metal plaque as well, but there are no swtiches at all. I couldn't find any information on the power requirements. Looks like it could take up to 4 batteries and maybe that's how speed goes up. The cable has 4 connectors in series meaning it adds power as you add batteries, looks like someone scratched the part that says how many volts it need to work at each speed. Thanks

I certainly enjoyed watching this. Wow 35mm film is so beautiful, that even when you shoot a home movie in a cloudy day it looks way better than a lot of stuff that I see people shoot on the newest digital cameras. Not trying to start a debate or anything, digital cameras pay my bills, but wow there is something about film that makes it look special.. And your skills of course.

http://www.webtfg.com/sync10.htm That's his website. You can see more info there. I'll try to test the camera as soon as possible, but I know they have been performing the conversion for a long time, and I see a clean job on the outside.

I own a Scoopic MS in beautiful condition, Bernie with Super 16.inc serviced the camera and converted it to Ultra 16 last year and I George Odell just converted my MS to crystal syn, I literally received the camera a few days ago and I have had a lot of work so I haven't been able to shoot anything, but he made me the favor of fixing something on the camera and converting it to CS. A man of few words, but looks like a clean job, and I hope it works as expected. It's going to cost around $1,500 to do the two conversions, but at the end you have a nice camera, that you know it was serviced and tested and that will allow you to shoot crystal synced stuff. I have developed a few accessories that take the camera to the next level, so it can be a good investment.

Thanks for sharing. What exactly do you want to know? I have a 3D printer the Ender 3 which is a common one and I can tell you that it is too big for my printer, but I could print the center maybe to see how the film runs trough it. Are you supposed to start loading from the center?

ASA is pretty much the same than ISO. The dial has two dots in between the numbers, for example there are two dots between 160 and 360 meaning those are ISO 200 and ISO 250, so there you have the one you were looking for. The main problem is going to be that light meters on Scoopics are old and not accurate, so I recommend testing the internal meter against a hand held reflected meter like a Sekonic or Pentax and a grey card, or a sold color. If the meter in your camera is not accurate but works, you can compensate by using a small number (ISO) like 160 for example, but in order to find the actual condition of the meter you will have to make some tests. If you don't have access to a hand held meter a DSLR and a solid white or gray piece of paper evenly lit can help. You point the cameras to the same spot, meter and compare the results.

Are you sure that's a hair? It looks very straight and at a perfect 45° angle. I have seen several camera that have a markers / needles like that one so you can get some kind of information when you see trough the viewfinder.

Obviously the camera had some work done. The aperture (iris) ring doesn't have the original cover and the leatherette seems sketchy too. You may have a crystal syn converted camera. It is possible to convert the R8 and the R10 to Crystal Sync and I have seen that kind of switches on converted cameras and I know that the modification is possible. Bad news is you may be missing an extra little box that goes with the camera when converted and needed to do the job.

Marc, Using an external meter is not complicated and that's actually what I do with all my film cameras. The mistake some people make is assume the light meters matches the specifications of the camera, meaning there are some factors you have to consider before deciding what your exposure is going to be. I own a few R10s and I tested a couple of them using a light meter and a gray card and they were giving me pretty much the same F-Stop that I would get if I consider some compensations on my hand held light meter. There are mainly 3 things that you should consider when using a non professional camera with no professional lenses. Someone mentioned Shutter Angle. Don't assume that your camera has a 180° shutter angle, always do your research, In the case of the R10 I'm pretty much sure it is 160° so dial that number on your meter, calculate the number 24x360= 54th/sec. The second factor to consider is you are using a lens marked on F stops not in T stops, so simply ad 1/3rd of a Stop to compensate for the light loss in the lens, and Third factor is the prism that they use in the camera to split the image between the viewfinder and the gate, simply ad another 1/3rd of stop to compensate for the light lost in the prism and you are set. Pretty much you are going to compensate (not over expose) one full stop to get proper exposure. Then if you want to over expose the film a little to get less grain or because that's your preference you can do it. It would be a good idea to shoot a roll of film for sure, and even better idea to shoot a roll using a gray card and over and under exposing to see the effects rather than just shooting whatever. You could use half roll to shoot charts and half of it for real life situations. That's exactly what I do and most of the time my shots are right on the spot without the variations that a auto meter will give.

I considered mentioning the CP-16r too because I think it's a great camera. It has a lot of modern components and it can be further modified to be even more functional. I understand there is a battery inside that was intended to keep track of footage when you change camera battery and that battery leaked on some cameras damaging some electronic components. I have two CP-16rs and they work fine, but looks like other people had that issue and I know a technician can remove that battery which doe no longer hols charge anyways. The CP-16 is kind of weird in some ways, but very functional and similar in ergonomics to what we have today in modern cameras. The operation and maintenance manual is avaibale online, but I can email it directly to you if you want it, it contains several schematics. I also have the "Inetrim Professional Technical Manual" another manual that has a lot of info about the camera, list of parts and components and at some point it has a lot of detailed information of the crystal sync system and some more schematics. Now that I saw that manual again I think it could provide you with a lot of information and you may get the idea of what they were looking for back in the day when designing those systems. I can send detailed high definition pictures of the gut of the camera too if you decide to take a look at it. Nobody wants to record sound on film anymore, so don't worry about the sound part, but some interesting things are the camera can be converted to U16 or S16 and a video tap can be mounted without removing the viewfinder. I have some other plans for that camera too that could make it more functional.

I know you want to "create" a motor for your cameras and that crystal sync motor may not exist, but there are motors with old technology that work fine and that could be improved in some way. I mean I don't think there is anything wrong on reverse engineering a NPR or ACL motor that works just fine and just copy it or improve it. There are more cameras than motors and probably just using modern components would make them easier to get repaired for example increasing the reliability of cameras. You mentioned the struggle of trying to find another piece of equipment that it's going to fit your camera that it's going to be hard to find, you don't know if it's going to work and even if it works it's going to be old and you are going to be afraid of using it. Even the newest film cameras, motors, controllers and accessories are free of patent restrictions now. In the USA a patent protect an invention for 14-20 years and after that it becomes "free" or "public" and they created that system so people can take advantage of their inventions for a period of time, but also to make it easier for people to see how it was done, improve it. Even hole cameras could be copied at this time including design. I'm not saying it's easy or a great business but we have computers, CNC machines and 3D printing technology today that manufacturers didn't have back in the 60's. I'm sure is not easy, but maybe just copying some of those motors that already exist could create some cash flow that you could use later to develop motors that don't exist. At the end of the day film cameras being as complex and precise as they are, are simple machines compared to today's technology and some of them just need a motor and a CLA to bring them back to life.

It's great to know you are working on this. I have been working on some simple modifications and accessories to make cameras more usable and I'm glad to know that there is people in other parts of the world working on creating this kind of stuff, specially complicated stuff like a crystal syn motor and with the technology that we have today like 3D printers and options to create inexpensive prototypes I hope you can make this happen. I have an Eclair NPR that needs a motor and I'm sure a lot of people with NPRs and ACLs would be interested as well. In my opinion 24 and 25fps are the ones that need to be crystal sync. I don't do a lot of slow mo, so for me 48, 64 or 75fps wild but close would be great. I don't know about the part of final users putting stuff together. I can do a lot of things, but I have no idea how to use an Arduino and I think most people would not be able to do it themselves, but you may find a partner in America and make it work that way. Keep up the good work, I'll be reading your updates.

Is your camera still available? Can you send some pictures? Thanks