Kilcullen Town Hall's Film Projector

Movie projector from Kilcullen Town Hall Cinema. © Eugene Brennan

I was examining the nameplate (rating plate) of Kilcullen Town Hall's former film projector the other day, now located in a corner of the porch of the heritage centre. The Peerless Magnarc carbon-arc lamphouse, paired-with the projector and  manufactured by the J. E. McAuley Manufacturing Company of Chicago, Illinois, ran on DC electricity. A rectifier may have been built into the projector to convert mains AC to DC, or possibly it was a separate piece of equipment.
Arc lamps were used as an intense white light source for projectors, essential for producing a bright image on the screen. They were also used of course in search lights during WWII, for spotting enemy aircraft. Arc lighting generates large amounts of harmful UV radiation and filters would presumably have been used in the optics to block this. Electric arcs also produce a lot of heat, as anyone who has ever done electric welding would know, and again, filtering would have been necessary to protect the film. Carbon rods were consumable items used in arc lamps, just like the rods used for arc welding and had to be replaced frequently. In the early days of movies, film stock was manufactured on a highly flammable nitrate base and fires were common. It's thought that a candle ignited a reel of nitrate film, resulting in the Drumcollogher tragedy of 1926, in which 46 people perished.

I'm not sure what the "motor" is, referred to in the spec. Since the lamp was an add-on unit to the projector, it was probably not the film feed motor, but rather a motor powering a cooling fan for the lamp or one that fed the electrodes as they were consumed.

The photo mounted on the projector shows actor Paul Newman standing in front of it on the occasion of his visit to Kilcullen over 20 years ago. At that stage, the projector was still located in the projection room.

Arc volts 31 - 46
Arc amps 32 - 100
Motor volts 31 - 110
Motor amps 0.5 - 1.4

J.E. McAuley Mfg. Co.
Chicago, ILL 
United States of America

Rating plate attached to the projector. © Eugene Brennan