To HD-144, or not to HD-144?

[Super16ACL@aol.com]

Eclair ACL Discussion and Support

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First, I'm the guy who sells the kits. Take that into account. 

The valid question comes up frequently of whether to go with the conversion 
offered in-house by a tech, or to buy an HD-144 kit and have a tech do the 
work. Here is an answer that I think applies to anyone thinking about a S-16 
conversion:

The thing to double check price-wise is whether a quote given for an in-house 
conversion versus an HD-144 conversion includes re-scribinbg the ground 
glass. For example, the HD-144 Kit comes with a letraset-like rub on --- it's 
good for temporary use, but most people will want to have a proper ground 
glass scribed at some point. So if the quote for an in-house conversion 
includes a properly scribed ground glass, then to get a valid comparable 
quote for the HD-144 installation, make sure that the quote includes the same 
ground glass scribing for the comparison to be valid.   Make an item by item 
list:

Aperture Plate?
Shutter?
Lens Flange?
Mirror re-center?
Ground Glass?
Viewfinder re-center?
Mags modified?
Other?

and compare everything that you get with one approach versus the other, and 
what it will cost.

There are a number of techs listed at:
www.members.aol.com/Super16ACL/techs.htm, however I cannot vouch for anyone 
at this point because I installed the HD-144 parts on my own ACLs myself. But 
I'm not a camera tech, and when I invariably don't get a camera running 
perfectly (I have 3) I send the camera to a friend up in Canada who is an 
old-timer who then tweeks it for me. Last time he spent 10 hours on it --- 
but it was running like a charm when I got it back. Everybody should have 
such a person at their disposal.

I used a converted ACL for a long time that didn't re-center the mirror, used 
the R-16 aperture plate with an enlarged opening made by filing,  had the 
Regular-16 shutter closed down to 144 degrees with just a piece of black 
aluminum glued on, and used the R-16 Lens Flange turned 45 degrees so that 
new holes offset 1.1mm could be drilled.  Not a single "new" part. It worked 
fine. And the advantage of just modifying the old parts is that if your ACL 
is already running great, no new "fudging" needs to be introduced. Putting new
parts in an ACL (Super-16 or Regular-16) will almost certainly require some 
"fudging." The ACL is very finicky --- it packs a lot of mechanical stuff in 
a tiny place with virtually no breathing room. And if something is off by 
1/100th of a millimeter, you may get horrible noise. So there is certainly a 
strong argument for not using the HD-144 kit if there are any doubts about 
the ability of the camera tech to fine tune everything properly with new 
parts. It requires more skill than just modifying the old parts and putting 
them back in, certainly. I created the HD-144 kit because I wanted to keep 
using the ACL because of it's small size, yet wanted it to feel that it was 
"new". However that's more of a "pride of ownership" thing. Frankly the whole 
thing has cost me more than I can ever expect to recover by selling a few 
dozen kits, so financially it wasn't worth it.  But I  like the feeling that 
my shiney aperature plate doesn't show any microscopic trace of having been 
"filed", and that the mirror timing is 100% perfect in Super-16 even though 
it may not matter enough to make a visible difference on the screen. However 
that doesn't necessarily make it any better than just re-machining the old 
parts. And if the new parts aren't 100% perfectly installed, it could make it 
worse. And remember, at this point there is no "factory trained HD-144 tech", 
something to always keep in mind.  When enough people have had the conversion 
and reported back on the work of various techs, then there will be more 
certain data to go on. Right now every conversion is sort of a pioneering 
experience. Mark.   



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