Connecting Two Kodak Ektapro Projectors

[perkeleellinen]

Hello All,
I have two Ektapro 9010 projectors that I want to connect to do dual projector dissolves. The Ektapro uses a connection Kodak called "P-Bus' which is a RS232 design (I think). Here's a picture showing the set up I'm copying:

https://docplayer.net/docs-images/58/41882446/images/11-0.png

The user guide also confirms this is correct.

I cannot get my slave projector to work. The Master works fine with the IR Remote and if I switch projectors so the slave becomes master then it works fine. I'm sure both projectors are working right. I'm wondering if a basic RS232 male - male cable is the problem. Did kodak make the cable different to the RS232? Are the pins switching because it's male-male? There is a Kodak catalogue number for a dissolve cable.

Here's a photo showing a Kodak branded cable:

https://www.rvharvey.com/images-photo/ektapro07.jpg

Anyone know anything about this? Is my problem because I'm using a normal RS232 male-male cable?

Thanks!

 

[Chan Tran]

Hello All,
I have two Ektapro 9010 projectors that I want to connect to do dual projector dissolves. The Ektapro uses a connection Kodak called "P-Bus' which is a RS232 design (I think). Here's a picture showing the set up I'm copying:

https://docplayer.net/docs-images/58/41882446/images/11-0.png

The user guide also confirms this is correct.

I cannot get my slave projector to work. The Master works fine with the IR Remote and if I switch projectors so the slave becomes master then it works fine. I'm sure both projectors are working right. I'm wondering if a basic RS232 male - male cable is the problem. Did kodak make the cable different to the RS232? Are the pins switching because it's male-male? There is a Kodak catalogue number for a dissolve cable.

Here's a photo showing a Kodak branded cable:

https://www.rvharvey.com/images-photo/ektapro07.jpg

Anyone know anything about this? Is my problem because I'm using a normal RS232 male-male cable?

Thanks!

I always wish to have the Ektapro but never have one. If it's supposed to work like that then use a null modem adapter and try. Basically you want to swap pin 2 and 3. That is it's either pint 2- to 2, 3 to 3, and 5 to 5 or 2 to 3, 3 to 2 and 5 to 5.

 

[EarlJam]

It's been a few decades since I last used a projector controller; kudos to you, Steve, for keeping this technology alive. Here's a pinout description for P-Bus port, from an old Dataton controller product sheet.

http://www.mediafab.com/mfi_menu/download/productsheets-a5.pdf

 

[perkeleellinen]

Thanks Both, very much. Looks like I need to cut open my RS232. Never done that before so I'll learn something new!

Found this that also has some details on RS232 cables: http://www.bb-elec.com/Learning-Center/All-White-Papers/Serial/FAQ-RS-232-Connections-That-Work.aspx

Will report back with progress.

Steve.

 

[Chan Tran]

Thanks Both, very much. Looks like I need to cut open my RS232. Never done that before so I'll learn something new!

Found this that also has some details on RS232 cables: http://www.bb-elec.com/Learning-Center/All-White-Papers/Serial/FAQ-RS-232-Connections-That-Work.aspx

Will report back with progress.

Steve.

Try the null modem adapter first. Also I don't think it needs all the connection but rather only 3 wires. Cutting the cable isn't a good solution. I think the Ektapro series projector are the best for 35mm. I don't think the Leica is better.
Anyway I hope they make some new projectors like the Ektapro but has USB interface with an app so you can do all the the stuff like disolving, sound track etc.. with a PC, Mac, tablets or smart phones.

 

[perkeleellinen]

Yeah, I read your post a bit closer and saw the null modem adapter solution!

 

[perkeleellinen]

Success! The null modem worked, thanks Chan. I made a little video; this is a hard cut:


Just for the record if anyone else finds their way here. You need a male-male RS232 cable and a male-female null modem adapter on one end. The cable needs to connect to the P-Bus in on both projectors. P-Bus out is only used when daisy chaining from a computer.

 

[perkeleellinen]

Anyway I hope they make some new projectors like the Ektapro but has USB interface with an app so you can do all the the stuff like disolving, sound track etc.. with a PC, Mac, tablets or smart phones.

It would be cool to be able to control via a tablet or phone. I've read about people connecting their pcs using software called Arduino. Perhaps the signal from the IR remote could be replicated so it could be transmitted via a tablet.

I'm very lucky to have these two Ektapros - they were given to me by someone stripping out an old AV room above a lecture theatre. I doubt they'd been used in ten years but they had been taken care of.

I'm going to write a few posts about projecting in the next week or so.

 

[Michael Firstlight]

I'll also day kudos keeping this alive!

My earliest experience using these was with a CP/M-driven AVL Eagle computer from the late 70's about the same size and shortly before the debut of the original IBM PC. We used the Eagle to sequence two dozen Eka projectors to soundtracks. The first Eagle computers were produced by Audio Visual Labs (AVL), a company founded by Chuck Kappenman in New Jersey in the early 1970s to produce proprietary large-format multi-image equipment. You can still find them on eBay now and then. We used those computer sequenced projectors driven by the Eagle to create massive 40 foot long by 20 foot high rear-projection corporate multimedia extravaganzas where I began my career. These were stunning, heart-stopping Hollywood-class analog multimedia productions for major corporate events, hosting thousands of employees, years before the emergence of mainstream computer-based multimedia as we know it today, became possible. Before that these sequenced projectors were controlled with (get this) - punched tape!

At times I entertained the thought of resurrecting a small scale setup as I also build vintage computers as a hobby, but it took a back seat to other ambitious vintage computer builds (I'm working on a vintage Actionmedia II DVI one at the moment).

Regards,
Mike

 

[Chan Tran]

It would be cool to be able to control via a tablet or phone. I've read about people connecting their pcs using software called Arduino. Perhaps the signal from the IR remote could be replicated so it could be transmitted via a tablet.

I'm very lucky to have these two Ektapros - they were given to me by someone stripping out an old AV room above a lecture theatre. I doubt they'd been used in ten years but they had been taken care of.

I'm going to write a few posts about projecting in the next week or so.

I am quite sure I can control the Ektapro via the RS-232 port and a PC. My programming knowledge is limited to the PC and I don't know USB interface well enough.

 

[perkeleellinen]

An interesting thread here: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=144284.15

The last post about controlling a projector using an Apple remote in particular.

Here's a cool thread from a few years ago about multi projector slide shows: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/multi-slide-projector-dissolve-shows.66978/

Really great to hear memories of the old AV days. Michael - Punched tape! I read recently here about someone using pulses from a VHS recorder to sync slides to music.

 

[Ardent_Tool]

(I'm working on a vintage Actionmedia II DVI one at the moment)

I came across this snippet while searching for editors that work on the Actionmedia II card [Micro Channel]. Updates to the AM II page came to a halt with the lack of documentation and Intel tools preventing further advancements...

https://ardent-tool.com/video/actionmedia.html

What is the status of your efforts? A fellow enthusiast wrote a DOS driver to control a Sony D70 PTZ camera via keyboard [RS232]. Decent live video on an AM II....

 

[Michael Firstlight]

I came across this snippet while searching for editors that work on the Actionmedia II card [Micro Channel]. Updates to the AM II page came to a halt with the lack of documentation and Intel tools preventing further advancements...

https://ardent-tool.com/video/actionmedia.html

What is the status of your efforts? A fellow enthusiast wrote a DOS driver to control a Sony D70 PTZ camera via keyboard [RS232]. Decent live video on an AM II....

Since that post, I built a new house and packed everything up. Now that we're all moved in I hope to get back to installing the ActionMedia II cards. The combination I have is the pair of AMII ISA (not MCA) capture and playback along with a dedicated video card and required wires. I know I have all of the software for both ISA and the OS/2 drives as well - but I'll need to dig it all out f one of my moving boxes. I don't know what editors if any reside on the 3.5" disks. I'll let you know what I dig up in my boxes.

Mike

 

[Ardent_Tool]

The combination I have is the pair of AMII ISA (not MCA) capture and playback along with a dedicated video card and required wires. I know I have all of the software for both ISA and the OS/2 drives as well - but I'll need to dig it all out f one of my moving boxes. I don't know what editors if any reside on the 3.5" disks. I'll let you know what I dig up in my boxes.Mike

Moving happens to the best of us...

I am referring to video editors, or multimedia stuff that could use the AM2. [Asymetrix Toolbox, Adobe Premiere 1.x, etc]. Another twist, since this stuff was before 1996, most messages about it were in BBS, or forgotten things like Prodigy... The Internet Archive didn't get those.... Lot of stuff that made it to 96, I bookmarked, or linked to the site... Then hardly five years later, a lot of that was gone. The horror... the horror...

 

[Michael Firstlight]

Ahhh, yes, Asymetrix Toolbox was the flagship my team used back in the early 90s for most of my team's MM projects. There were a few others - IconAuthor that I played with some but not extensively. I might still have a copy of Asymetrix Toolbox in storage - I have about 100 major packaged classic DOS early Win apps still from that era as I still run many of them on a variety of older systems in my collection - from a hopped-up PC/XT with a 5MB Intel Inboard upgraded to 33MHz 486 and an XT_IDE, as well as several 486 and Pentium systems in addition to a very rare hybrid build.. I'll need to see if I still have my copy of ToolBox (Instructor Edition) in one of those storage bins. There are some archive sites where folks have uploaded images of a lot of SW from that era - WinWorld has an eval copy for DL that works up to 6 hrs her project.

 

[Michael Firstlight]

Some additional resources here: http://ohlandl.ipv7.net/video/actionmedia.html and here: https://www.pcorner.com/list/ANIM/IV32RV.ZIP/INFO/ I hope to unearth my boxes this week.

M.