To design a new cartridge properly, we needed to actually understand the old ones first, precisely. We built an orthographic scanner specifically to capture cartridge geometry without the distortion a normal camera or handheld scan would introduce. There’s real variety to account for: different makers licensed the format over the years (Fisher-Price, Mettoy, Corgi, and Disney among them, all off the original Action Films design), and their tooling wasn’t identical.
A standard cartridge from that era holds about 12 feet of film, upwards of 850 frames of Super 8, which works out to roughly a minute and a half to two minutes at a moderate crank speed. With the right film path and a custom-engineered cartridge, doubling that looks achievable if friction through the path is managed well; that’s actively being proofed. We’re also looking at cartridge size itself as a variable, not just film length: a mini size for very short loops, and a double-length size for longer ones.
This is the Level 2 cartridge work on the roadmap: a cartridge you don’t have to crack open. Buy one blank and load it yourself, or send us a film and we’ll load it for you.