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9.5 IN THE USA
A RESTORED PATHÉ BABY PROJECTOR

From Paul Adsett

Well I have finally completed the restoration and motor upgrade of my 1922 Pathé Baby. This machine was a Christmas gift from my daughter a couple of years ago. She got it off ebay, and unlike many Pathé Baby machines sold on ebay, this machine is cosmetically in really great shape, with almost no paint chipping and negligible rust. The brass  Pathé Cockerel decal is also like new. You could hardly turn the handle on it when we unpacked it, so I had to strip it down and clean and lube the whole mechanism.

The resistance matt in the base of the machine was cracked, and looked a lethal safety hazard, so my next step was to  convert the lighting system to 12 volt 20 watt halogen, stripping out the old 115 volt resistance matt in the base and inserting a very small 12 volt transformer. The ceramic lamp socket and transformer  was obtained from a 12 volt landscape light purchased from Home Depot. I had to design up a special metal holder for the new lamp socket so that it would fit into the existing neck of the Baby lamp housing. I did this using Pro/Engineer CAD software, generated a drawing and then had the part fabricated at a local machine shop. The conversion was very successful, and the external appearance of the projector has not changed at all.

My next step was the procurement of the 300ft Super Attachment, which I got from Buckingham Films.  The final work was to motorize the projector, and thanks to Tony Reypert at Buckingham Films for the 115 v motor, Grahame Newnham for the intermediate motor pulley, and Wharton Parfitt for the belts, the projector is now complete and runs like a Swiss watch,  while I relax in my easy chair! So here she is, in all her glory, a beautiful piece of restored cinema history, which was very satisfying to restore, and which I now proudly display in my home theater room. It is a great conversation piece, inevitably getting visitors attention and interest. But of course it is much more than a beautiful museum piece, it is a fully functional 9.5mm projector which I use quite often, showing Popeye silent films to the delight of my grandson and his friends.

Paul Adsett, Orlando, USA

   Thanks Paul for the photo and details of your 9.5mm Pathe Baby projector - as Paul lives in the USA the mains voltage is 115 volts, so that the Baby motor runs happily straight off the mains. In Europe and the UK the transformer would have to have a 115 volt winding for the motor as well as the 12 volt (or 6 volt) for the new lamp. Both Rapid Radio and Radio Spares in the UK supply neat toroid transformers which have 115 / 230 volt primary windings - the 30 watt version seems to run motor and 10 watt lamp in a Baby quite happily and it will fit in the Baby base - editor.

I hope you enjoyed this 'magazine' - watch for regular updates - all contributions very welcome!

First published March 2004 ........ Last updated: 17 August 2009 ........ cel18.htm .......... ©MM1X-G.L. Newnham