Tyler Fukuda

Hi everyone, I recently picked up an Angenieux 5.9mm/1.8 in B-mount and noticed that when mounting the lens onto the camera (Arriflex 16BL), the entire rear mount shifts about 5°. I’m wondering if anyone knows the best way to tighten down the rear mount? I see there is a Knurled ring at the rear of the lens and a slotted retaining ring which sits directly behind that ring. I can physically spin the knurled collar ring clockwise and it seems to loosen the mount and the opposite way naturally tightens it… but no matter how tight that ring is, it doesn’t seem to hold the mount enough to reduce potential play. Any ideas?

Hey all! Does anyone have intel on some of the sharper Arri B-Mount lenses? Especially the Zooms? I’ve got a copy of an Angenieux 12-120 and i’d say it’s fairly sharp but wanting a bit more. I also hear that Standard Mount lenses can work on B-mount (but not all) for flange depth clearance. Thank you!

Have an update regarding my electronics issue. 1) I was finally able to obtain a working BLE motor from Willie Schmitz. He's absolutely awesome and communication with him was wonderful. Very glad we crossed paths -- It's currently in route from Germany. I will have a backup motor incase this one sh**s the bed. 2) While it's in service, it was quote $650 to repair, so I went ahead and am having them finish up the electrical issues. Very excited to get this camera back up and running again as it's supposed to be...

Vincent, This is actually INCREDIBLY helpful and I will follow up with you in the future regarding your entire pipeline for this build. I am in the process of building a motor for mine (with help from a friend of course) In hopes that more modern solutions can troubleshoot the lack of available motors left in the world. I love how small your motor nicely fits to the camera body. Keep up the good work and can't wait to see it complete! - Tyler

I believe it’s Amphenol 165-13 9-pin for the 16BL. I just don’t see any data sheets that tell you which wires need to be soldered where for 4-pin xlr

Hey folks! looking to purchase a few items. 1) Magazine Blimp / Barney: These are leather and come in either black or white with ‘arriflex’ stamped on the side. 2) Magazine port (body side) lid. 3) Magazine loop protector shield 4) Power cable to 4-pin XLR 5) Spare BLE motor 6) Power switch box: I believe you can attach these to a panhandle. Could probably fabricate one myself also. LMK if you have any of these items! Thank you!!

Well there ya go. Honestly you could probably get away with purchasing a few of these and they'd still be cheaper than anything modern. I think it could also be handy to find someone who repairs electronics to diagnose a broken one so if it goes down, maybe you replace a small component and viola! you're fixed

Hey Steve, So after some attempts to fix it myself with the help from a friend, it was more than likely that the board had a fault in one of it's components and that i'd need to purchase a motor or decide to build one myself. While deciding between all these options, I was contacted by Richard Bennett who runs Cinema Engineering here in Los Angeles. He was more than happy to work on it for me and has an electronics engineer that was willing to perform a diagnostic on it. So I ended up handing it off to him for repairs and have yet to hear back for further instruction. It's been 3-4 days now? This was the quickest way to deal with this problem as I knew I'd find it very difficult to get a replacement motor and to build one was going to take quite a bit of time as i've never done such a task before. As of today, I have been able to find someone who is willing enough to sell me a motor. They live in Germany though so I'm waiting for them to get back to me. The price seems fair and I may be able to snag a Type B viewfinder in the same purchase!

This is a fantastic meter and I keep one as a back up. I like and have gotten used to my L608 which has become my go to meter. It’s also combo which comes in handy when you need the spot so I’m not pulling out a separate meter. What I hate most about the Gossen is that the lumisphere is on the top, which makes it really awkward to point towards camera as you are looking down at the meter or you were turning at 90° on its side. But I agree with you in the null system in which you can just turn the dial and know how many stops you are over or under. I don’t think there is anything modern that has this type of system, but once you get used to the newer stuff you sort of forget about using the older meter anyhow

Hi everyone, Since i’ve spent the better half of the month dealing with some electronics issues with my 16BL, I was able to obtain some wiring diagrams. In case this helps any future tinkers or technicians, I will link this here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xIfWY-wM81fHhlr_F4Tjy83C77BO-rlV/view?usp=drivesdk

One more question @Jarin Blaschke I attended your Q&A last night at the Kodak house and you mentioned about camera movement wanting to take on a more "classic" approach. Were there any films Rob and yourself watched that demonstrate this type of approach? Clearly all the moves are very calculated and precise -- I imagine this had a lot to deal with the cranes/remote heads you were using.

My apologies! Let me know if that has fixed it.

UPDATE: I spoke with Andrew at AZ Spectrum in NYC. I believe he works primarily on older film cameras.. Anyway, he says that a common problem with these cameras is that within the motor, there is a magnetic disc (which I believe acts like a Hall Sensor) that sends a signal pulse by "disrupting" via it's magnetic field each time the motor spins a rotation. In the motor if you see the photos, it's that silver object positioned at about 7 o'clock. He said that over time the magnetic field becomes weak and no longer is able to create a pulse, so he suggested I either introduce a new magnet by replacing or just physically sticking on on there in order to mimic this effect. I will try this either today or tomorrow when i'm in a position to plug this into a battery as I don't own one.

Hey Vincent, thank you for your reply A wiring diagram would very helpful to me and I imagine that they are very difficult to come by. In all honestly, I will need to get up to speed regarding this technical information as I don't have a background in electronics -- but i'm willing to give it effort to learning so.

After a bit of research, it seems this is an ARRI motor and is called a BLE motor. Apparently one of the 3 options ARRI supplied for the 16BL. Now my next question might be, does this motor NEED a crystal sync unit to be attached in order for it to be 'governed'?

Here are some photos of the motor itself. Is this the original BL motor or is this upgraded? https://drive.google.com/file/d/11KtOlRXS7bFz9l7-TZCnVQ5HWg40pvJc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RiVKg2mmTGBOeYdTthPOOERa7uCCF5Rn/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SWvT2yCc5gC21VtcpozfgQoo7imlI6q_/view?usp=sharing

Hey All, I'm moving this thread here as I figured a discussion here may be helpful to others. I recently acquired an 16BL for next to nothing and was already cautious about purchasing an item that had no history of whether or not it worked. I first attempted to power the camera at the rental house, and it appeared to only want to "take off" on me and run at a very high fps, essentially maxing out. I didn't want to damage the motor so I would only run the camera in short bursts. The camera came with a crystal motor (Georg Jensen 505) and figured it may be that -- It wasn't. Even bypassing the crystal motor the camera did the same thing.. I called Andre at AMCamera here in Los Angeles and described my problem. He said that when the camera wants to "take off on you" that it is likely to do with a failure to send a Signal Pulse. My knowledge is very limited here so I could really only understand this as to be 'no good'. Perhaps one of you can better describe this phenomenon. I ended up taking the camera over to Tyler Purcell who was an immense help at showing me where the problem might lie. He tested various systems and came to a conclusion that the problem likely lies on the motor tach board itself. So while I wait for Du-All and Visual Products to get back to me, I'm hoping that I might find a wiring circuit diagram of the motor (if anyone has one) ad attempting to find out where the problem of the components lies. Hope to take yall on this journey of repairing this old camera and bringing it back to life in the new millennium lol - T

So after some diagnosing with the help of Tyler Purcell, we concluded that the issue is likely coming from the motor itself and/or the board on the motor. Not entirely sure if the motor is original. I will try and provide some photos, but if anyone that owns a 16BL can confirm -- it might help me in the right direction. I've reached out to both Du-All and Visual Products to see if they have any replacement motors. In the meantime, if anyone happens to have an original circuit diagram, it would be immensely helpful in diagnosing the component(s) at fault.

I think you may be correct here. I was reading through the manual supplied with the battery and I don't believe it's regulated. It's also rated "12.5V ~ 17.25V".

So I was able to test out the camera today on an SLi-600 block battery via the 4-pin XLR. The block battery has a rated output from 12-14 VDC. We were able to power the camera via the crystal sync and the original input and noticed that the camera wanted to only run at +50fps. We immediately shut it off as to not burn out the motor and it was difficult to truly test the crystal sync at different variable speeds - But it seemed like the camera only wanted to run at a very high frame rate. I’m wondering if the block battery is sending too much voltage to the camera and just pushing it into overdrive? Would love some thoughts regarding this. unfortunately I was not able yo gather a video but may test again at the rental house - T

I found some more info regarding the 505 Crystal Sync motor https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KUhsPCS49qnxsXuljQTLcUWOCEUDzixu/view?usp=drivesdk But it does not say anything about amp’s

Yea, my problem is that I need a battery solution that will get it running at the moment. The camera only came with 4pin XLR cables but no battery belt or block.

If it helps, it’s fitted with a Georg Jensen crystal sync motor. I can provide a picture here if anyone is at all familiar https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MHhjilrODi_I5mxvyQ8isi18ijPixqM/view?usp=drivesdk https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eJKcDtPA3MstXndmeClsSNVOqULmQdg4/view?usp=drivesdk

I honestly don’t know about the amperage consumption - i’ll do a bit more research into this and come back with a solid answer

Hey all! I have an Arri 16BL that i’d like to get running but don’t have a battery for it, but do have the 4-pin XLR cables. Is there a creative cheap solution to make some sort of battery belt using some existing 150wh gold mount batteries? Or possibly something like a 12v power tool battery with some sort of cigarette to 4-pin xlr without breaking the bank? Thank you in advance, Tyler