Kodak XL-55 camera plagued with broken main drive gears

[super-8-epiphany]

I acquired 2 of these cameras, the first 2 Super 8's I owned. One was FREE no charge, the other cost $10 delivered price including shipping.

Neither of them worked- when batteries were put in, one just ran and ran, but drive cog for cartridge did not spin inside, and zoom didn't work. The other camera was just dead.

There are always about 6 of these on Ebay for $1 plus shipping it seems- and a few sellers said when they put batteries in, the camera runs and runs by itself, but no zoom, won't advance film.

In the archives here, I found this post as well:

I've also had 5 Kodak xl10, xl 33, xl55 cameras that had given me grief. They all had the same problem. When batteries are installed and first run,as soon as you release the bar, everything would stop and it sounded like the motor would keep running but nothing was moving. It would do this until a battery was removed. They never worked again.

I decided to "sacrifice" both of my XL-55's, take them apart, and find out what's wrong. Here's the deal, to anyone interested in using/buying the Kodak XL-55:

There is a small DC motor that drives both the shutter and zoom lens, by turning gears that mesh together. Thh main motor drive gear is plastic- as is most of the other gears. The main drive gear in both cameras, was SHEARED OFF from age/use. All the teeth were broken off it- this drive gear presses onto the motor drive shaft itself. The camera has to be totally disassembled, to change it.

So in effect, what happens is, the motor sits there spinning, but the shutter and zoom is not engaged, neither is the film cartridge drive cog. This is a real shame, because if they put a steel or aluminum drive gear in, these cameras would both work now.

If you happen to get one of these cameras and it works, I highly recommend NOT using the zoom function. The zoom lens puts a lot of strain on this small drive gear, and if it sticks, all the drive gear teeth simply shear/break off. These gears are so fragile and dried out from age, they break easier than an eggshell. Use the manual zoom, and save the drive gear for shutter/cartridge cog drive. Fortunately, I did not pay much for these cameras.

[BolexPlusX]

Nearly as I can figure, Kodak made their early cameras with gears made out of some kind of macaroni; it was just about that durable, especially after given some years to become embrittled.

One of my great Super-8 adventures was the summer I met my wife. My first camera died about a year before and I still had film in the fridge. One day I was in a camera shop and there was a very simple little Kodak Instamatic box camera (fixed focus, no metering) new in the box for $5. We had a great time with that little camera and surprisingly got some really great images with it. Just as Fall rolled around a gear disintegrated and that was the end of it.

-but we still have the films.

I bought one just like it on E-bay and it sits on the shelf in our den. I've never even put batteries in it.

[BK]

It's a shame that the early Kodak super 8 cameras were made with cheese gears. The M22 particular was my favorite, manual exposure and a great fixed focus lens that gave sharp and contrasty images comparable to cameras costing 10 times as much.

The one which was built with metal drive gear I have been told is the M2/M4, the M2 has manual exposure also and thoeretically would work with the majority of today's super 8 stocks.

Bill

[super-8-epiphany]

the XL-55 is a great little camera for ergonomics- it's small, light, handy, at first glance it could pass as a still camera.

a perfect example of ONE badly engineered part, nuking a product

[leadlike]

Yeah, Kodak really slipped up with that cheap-o gear. My parents had an earlier m-series cam, purchased in summer 1972. That gear wore out filming my first birthday in 1982. My mother recalled the camera making a loud straining noise, and then finally dying just as the roll was finished. She had it developed (k40) and the results show many flash frames and inconsistent exposure. My parents got about 15 rolls out of this camera in exactly ten years.

In my travels, I have found many of these cameras, and not one of them has worked. I've even seen some listed for sale in nice camera shops on consignment-listed as fully cla'd and all that. Please be aware that this really can never be the case!

[super-8-epiphany]

there was an XL-55 for sale online listed as "new-unused" for $10 recently, the seller informed me it belonged to a former Kodak employee who got it for free, brought it home, and never used it- but I passed on it anyway. What good is it, if I shoot a few rolls and then the gear breaks ? It may just break on the first roll. The gears I took out of these cameras, had the texture of dried macaroni or bread crust, only softer. They broke like pie crust in my fingers. The main gear itself, was disintegrating inside the camera, created a white plastic powder inside.

I asked the seller to put batteries in it and turn it on, they didn't answer.

[super-8-epiphany]

I acquired a 3rd XL-55 camera, in very nice condition. This one actually WORKED for about 2 minutes. I zoomed in/out a few times, tried the 2 shutter speeds, then the 18 FPS speed stopped working. The zoom and 9 FPS speed continued to work. Then it broke completely, the motor started whirring away, and I had to pull the batteries.

what a shame !

[Muckymuck]

For a long time now I've treated the Kodak Instamatic cameras as disposable Super 8 cameras. Cheap and cheerful and more often than not, good for one use only.

They do have a certain appeal, and give surprisingly good pictures for a fixed focus lens, and are also great indoors in poor lighting conditions with the aperture wide open as there's very little light loss. But the cheapo innards do mean they can fail unpredictably.

I got an M12 for my Super 8 novice fiancee for a trip to Berlin last Summer. (She is a still photography whizz, so when I told her the shutter speed for 18fps she was able to use the ISO of the film to estimate a suitable f stop). She shot two carts- one 64T and one old Agfa Moviechrome 40, and the camera just seized up on our last day with about 5ft to go. The films came out fantastically, so it was all the more saddening that the camera packed in.

[super-8-epiphany]

the Kodaks are really appealing and handy, due to their size and shape, and the "binocular" type handles on them. The controls are really easy to get to, for zoom and shutter. Someone should come up with a replacement metal drive gear to retrofit into these. It's pretty obvious that at this age they will break the first cart you put in them.

This one didn't even have a cart in it, I was just testing the functions. With film drag it would have broken immediately.

[etimh]

Someone should come up with a replacement metal drive gear to retrofit into these.

I offered up a similar thought here when it was discovered that one of the plastic zoom-drive gears in my Nikon R10 was shot. I wondered if I could either find some metal replacement or even have one fabricated. Not much of an enthusiastic response on either proposal.

Tim

[super-8-epiphany]

a close friend of mine owns a tool/die machine shop, he's been making tooling for the aerospace industry, for over 35 years. He makes gears on a bridgeport machine- but they are large industrial gears

these are very, very small in a camera.

I'm thinking this- find a camera that's not broken- don't turn it on yet- take it apart- remove the drive gear- give it to a machine shop, and say "make me this in aluminum"

the XL-55 breakage is a crime- looking inside those cameras, the lens and focusing parts are top notch, for such a little camera- one can tell that's not a cheap lens in there

[etimh]

I'm thinking this- find a camera that's not broken- don't turn it on yet- take it apart- remove the drive gear- give it to a machine shop, and say "make me this in aluminum"

viewtopic.php?t=11436&highlight=r10+zoom+gear

I never followed through on my R10 but check out Mikael's suggestion on getting a gear made. Some good ideas.

Tim

[super-8-epiphany]

the clay mold is ingenius- thanks !

the model clay mold would work- but then there's a question of strength- there is JB Weld 2-part epoxy that is quite strong, strong enough to actually file and machine-

this would have to be engineered and tried- to see what kind of lifespan the replacement plastic gear would have

the real fix would be, to have one milled from aluminum- but then one runs into the reality of economics

problem- shops with CNC's and programmers to write them, are not cheap- they would "no bid" this (my brother has been doing this for a local mfr. for 15 years now). They require a minimum production run, and R/D time is currently around $65-75 an hour.

therefore, this would have to be taken to a small shop- shop time would be $50 per hour minimum- one day to design, one day to machine, it would end up being a $500-800 job if CNC'd- the result would be, you could buy a mint Canon 1014 XL-S for less, and just shoot film

it always boils down to money

so someone with a passion to just fix this camera would have to do this (it may be me)

[Jim Carlile]

One of the great super 8 'tragedies' is how the incredible Kodak M series cameras have a little plastic drive gear that shears off all of its teeth after about ten years.

But.... that doesn't happen with the original M-2, M-4, and M-6 cameras. These excellent units look like bricks and they last forever. The drive gear is still plastic, but it is designed differently-- it has much larger and fewer teeth. The later M-series gears have a large number of tiny teeth that just can't stand the march of time and old lubricants.

Another good thing-- the M-2 doesn't have a meter, so it will never break, and the M-4 and M-6 will run 100D correctly. That's because they were designed to take ASA 40 and ASA 100-- Kodak originally was planning on coming out with an ASA 100 'high speed film,' but opted for a later 160 Ektachrome. Just don't lose the filter key that you need to take out the 85 filter and set the meter to the high ASA.

The meterless M-22 was considered by many to be the best S8 camera ever made, even though it only cost 30 bucks. The M-2's not far behind.

If you find an M-22 anywhere, it will run beautifully-- for about 15 seconds. After that, the drive gear teeth will dissolve. This has been discussed many times here. A lot of sad stories.

[super-8-epiphany]

so there's definitely a need for mfg. of new replacement gears, and installation