|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 12:55:07 GMT -7
HOW many shows were on the odometer? from its original installation, as read on your recent timeline. Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 23 2016, 10:48 AM QUOTE(mrgare5050 @ Aug 23 2016, 05:49 AM) * HOW many shows were on the odometer? from its original installation, as read on your recent timeline.
I'm getting "slow" as I age and I'm not quite sure what your asking.
From the time I started giving programs in June of 2014, I have given 147 shows. If your asking how many shows since the projector was installed in 1976 I can't be at all sure. All I have to go on is the total number of hours are on the star lamp. I reset it when I started presenting here. Somewhere I have the number of hours of operation and something like 3600 sticks in my mind. I think my total is fast approaching 300 hours but I would have to go out and look at the readout. Is this the info your after or is my interpretation incorrect?
|
|
|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 12:55:46 GMT -7
Posted by: moonmagic Aug 23 2016, 12:07 PM "moon" is checking out things. This is his first post since the OC came "back up."
RW- I sent you an email but it got rejected...I was using the starbarn one. Is that no longer active? Shoot me an email with your current contact information please. mm
AND as for this "old" stuff...
I must admit that I can't do what I used to do...that is for sure, HOWEVER, you my friend do MORE in most weeks than any two 30 year-old's combined. PACE YOURSELF. My pace is currently....one good full day of work, followed by one or two days for recuperation! Think of it like the speed of light.....it's the RULE. mm
|
|
|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 12:56:28 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 23 2016, 01:01 PM QUOTE(Ron Walker @ Aug 23 2016, 10:48 AM) * I'm getting "slow" as I age and I'm not quite sure what your asking.
From the time I started giving programs in June of 2014, I have given 147 shows. If your asking how many shows since the projector was installed in 1976 I can't be at all sure. All I have to go on is the total number of hours are on the star lamp. I reset it when I started presenting here. Somewhere I have the number of hours of operation and something like 3600 sticks in my mind. I think my total is fast approaching 300 hours but I would have to go out and look at the readout. Is this the info your after or is my interpretation incorrect?
The exact hour meter reading is 295.3 star ball lamp hours since opening here at the star barn. I don't know why I thought it was used only 3600 hours in Texas, as is is way wrong. I think it was more like 8736 hours but will look for it.
|
|
|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 12:56:53 GMT -7
Posted by: mrgare5050 Aug 23 2016, 05:07 PM QUOTE(Ron Walker @ Aug 23 2016, 08:01 PM) * The exact hour meter reading is 295.3 star ball lamp hours since opening here at the star barn. I don't know why I thought it was used only 3600 hours in Texas, as is is way wrong. I think it was more like 8736 hours but will look for it.
you need a TOTAL SHOW COUNT including Texas. well, you just do.
|
|
|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 12:57:29 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 23 2016, 07:04 PM QUOTE(mrgare5050 @ Aug 23 2016, 05:07 PM) * you need a TOTAL SHOW COUNT including Texas. well, you just do.
They didn't keep records or at least I was never privy to them. I can give a guess based on both there advertisements for shows and then again on the number of hours on the bulbs.
When they opened they offered three public shows a week and twelve for college classes and public high and grammar schools. I would guess they would shut down for the summer so a guesstimate of 44 working weeks a year would seem accurate. Not sure how long a show would be but I would guess a normal 40 minute class period. I will round up to a full hour as there would be a certain amount of set up time and practice with new programs. That puts usage at 660 shows a year or a total of 21,120 shows in the 32 years in Texas. This does not fit as I believe the total bulb run time is only something like 8,736 hours. Once I find the actual number of hours I can give you a better estimate.
|
|
|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 12:58:18 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Nov 20 2019, 11:06 AM Had the north star ball lamp quite working a couple of days ago and the new lamp just doesn't appear as bright. The Hyades cluster is especially dim. I'm sure this has something to do with me not properly aligning the lamp but it is my first attempt at doing this. I do have an aligning device but really have no idea what to do except perhaps place the exact center of the filament in the crosshairs of the alignment device. MM I believe has worked with this type of alignment device before and could perhaps guide my thinking. I have a suspicion that a filament support in the bulb itself might be shadowing that exact place in my sky. I will work on it.
This bulb ran for 535 hours since The Star Barn opened in 2014 and was the bulb that was in the projector when it was removed from Texas. Who knows how many hours it had on it then. What is interesting is that the filament appears intact and I cleaned off the contract to make sure of electrical contact but I get an open resistance between the contacts. There are two fuse elements on each side of the filament which are in the base of the lamp and cannot be seen so I'm guessing that one of them is open. I will try and take the bulb apart to see if I can find out exactly what went wrong.
|
|
|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 12:59:06 GMT -7
Posted by: moonmagic Nov 21 2019, 08:56 PM
Ron, I wish I could remember the process. Yes, we did do that back in the early 70's! For some reason, it seems that the alignment was a two-step process. I assume you have only one spare bulb? The projector (MS-10) that we had in the late 60's and for about 20 years, IS THE projector I now have, however when it went overseas for a factory overhaul, it came back with completely different star lamps which no longer required the use of the initial alignment device with the cross-hairs. All this to say that I can be of no help at this point. There might be one person I could call or email to see if he has better recollection. mm
|
|
|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 12:59:50 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Nov 22 2019, 10:49 AM
There is a picture in one of my books that shows an alignment of the main star lamp in a Zeiss II projector. It shows a rather large glass globe with a very loose filament. From what you say this now makes more sense. I believe that the original Minolta used a large bulb very much like the Zeiss. This was also updated to a halogen cycle lamp with a much more compact filament. This filament is either right in the center of the cross-hairs or it is not. Actually very easy to align because the bulb is so much smaller. I would love to see a picture of your bulb or at least get a measurement of the length of the filament.
But the plot will thicken as you will soon see.
|
|
|
Post by Ron Walker on Sept 10, 2022 13:03:18 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Nov 22 2019, 12:57 PM If you remember, when we went to get the projector way back in 2008, it contained bulbs in all of the projectors. I have no idea as to how many hours were on any of them as they stopped keeping records around 1994. I see no reason why they would have replaced any operational bulb just before they sold it to me so I'm assuming that the bulbs had been used since the last burnout. There is no way to tell how long the bulbs had been in and how many hours were on them. When the projector went operational here in 2014, I reset the bulb hour meter to zero (it had accumulates something over 8K hours during its stay in Texas) and has run for 535 hours since then. The estimated lifespan of the bulb is 2k hours and I would imagine the movement of the machine as well as burning the bulb other than base down would take its toll on lamp life. Some of the information is sketchy and in complete but it does record some useful material. The maintenance log starts in January 1977. the first north star ball replacement was in November 1981 or after five years of use with an accumulated lamp hours of 1454.5. Not bad at all. The south star lamp lasted until January of 1985 with an accumulated 2456.2 hours. After that point in time hours were no longer mentioned but north star ball lamps were replaced in May of 1990 and again in October of 1994. My guess is that not all of the bulb changes were recorder but we can see bulbs lasting from five to ten years. That would probable mean a replacement in 2004 with four years on the bulb when I got it, or a replacement in 1999 and 2004 again my receiving the lamp with four years on it. The best that I can figure, they used the projector about 307 hours a year so my five plus years have only added about two years of their use or this bulb having something like six years worth. So all of this is just worthless conjecture but it does give an idea of how much time each bulb lasted. Another couple of points worth noting. One bulb was put in and blew very quickly. Probably because whoever replaced it touched it with their fingers. The oils from one's skin will with the intense heat generated by a halogen bulb, will penetrate and allow air to enter and thus cause the bulb to fail. Also they mentioned that they replaced with a GE Q500CL/DC 500 watt 120 volt lamp. With the projector they also gave me a bulb box which contained five Eiko brand Q500CL/DC 500 watt 120 volt lamps. At the rate that these lamps lasted I had enough for ten to twenty or longer years worth of bulbs. Thus I had no qualms when the lamp went out, it was just part of maintenance and replaced the bulb and ran into the problems indicated. On the first anniversary of the projector I had a party to which Brent came and brought a present of two GE bulbs of the same type. Now I was fairly sure I had enough to last for my tenure with the projector. I used one of the Eiko lamps as the lamp code was identical and I assumed the folks in Texas bought the proper replacement bulbs as indeed the lamp code was identical. Now one should not assume anything and I did note that the filaments in the bulbs were a different length as well as a different diameter. As is easily seen, while the base and power connector and bayonet base of the bulbs is interchangeable both the length, thickness, and diameter of the bulbs is different. Since both are 500 watt lamps and give off the same number of lumens, the brightness per mm of length is less in the Eiko lamp then the GE. One might think that 500 watts is 500 watts but that is not so when dealing with the optical systems involved. The condenser systems for the sixteen projectors are designed for a concentrated filament source of which the Eiko filament is not. A third of the filament is producing unused light and thus the stars are somewhat dimmer. Also because of the long and thinner filament, two supports are required which cast a larger shadow toward the lenses. The next experiment was obvious and I replaced the Eiko bulb with the GE one. The results were amazing. The Hidies were back in all of their glory and the sky was back to its full brilliance. I immediately went on a search for the GE lamps and found and ordered four of them. There was a picture that showed the shorter and more compact filament. I found this quite interesting as one would think identical numbered bulbs would be identical but I'm now thinking without the three letter code of typical projection lamps this code CL/DC is only to indicate the type of socket required. MM, you might want to look at one of your bulbs in your projector and see exactly what type of lamp it is using. Anyway, for me, all is back to normal and I learned something about bulbs.
|
|