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Fwiw, it sounds like a super easy fix. What's most likely that things just became unaligned - when you turn the aperture dial on the camera, it rotates a set of gears, which moves a lever on the shutter housing. The lever is very small though, and easily came unaligned when I was taking mine apart. The shutter mechanism itself is very clearly labeled what each setting is for each lever, so just set the lever at the same aperture that the dial is set to, then put the front casing back on. Before you screw things in and reapply the leatherette, try turning both the aperture and shutter speed dials several times to ensure you can feel resistance (the aperture dial will probably have more resistance than the shutter speed dial) and that they don't jiggle loose, then you're good to go. If the tab lines up correctly, AND the aperture lever on the shutter housing moves freely with no resistance, then you're probably hosed as it's something wrong in the shutter housing itself. Opening that is a whole other beast. Also a valuable lesson - test what you can before you screw everything back together. 
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Apr 3, 2019 02:34
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I should not be allowed to touch cameras, because all I'm doing is fixing stuff only to break other things. You were right, Codfish, I pulled it back apart and the little levers were just misaligned, so that was a quick fix. Once I got that together, I noticed that the shutter blades were now suddenly sticky and slow to close. I decided, what the hell, I'd pull it apart and see if I could maybe through some lighter fluid on the blades*. However, once I was close to getting the shutter assembly out, I quickly realized several things: 1. There were tiny wires and springs I'm not currently prepared to deal with. 2. Tiny things moved and I didn't make note of where they were supposed to be.  I spent the next hour or so trying to figure out the mechanics of this so I could get everything back into place. I think I figured it out, but worryingly, I concluded at least one part must have been bent somehow, because bending it back was the only way I could figure out to get the shutter cocked; otherwise, one of the levers involved seemed to be slipping. Hopefully I didn't gently caress anything up by doing that. During that process, the shutter blades seemed to stop being sticky and seem to be working, at least for now, because of course they are. That said, something else seems to have stopped working out of nowhere. Now the winding arm isn't able to push far enough to actually cock the shutter. I don't see anything that seems off in the assembly I was loving with, and I can see that the arm that transfers movement from the crack has room to move further (about the same distance that would be needed to finish cocking the shutter), so I think there's something wrong with the crack gears. I suppose tomorrow I'll try taking that apart to see what fun combination of things I can fix and break. * I didn't get around to trying to clean the shutter blades, but now that I have time to ask, is Zippo Premium an acceptable substitute for Ronsonol? I googled around and I think it is, but I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who might know for sure.
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Apr 3, 2019 06:20
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Hoo boy. I’m constantly having to gently caress with my yashica mat shutter, so it’s not just you. It’ll randomly decide to stick once in a while but work like a charm most of the time. I had a similar cocking issue. Ended up tweaking the tiny receiving lever on the shutter a bit so that the cocking arm linkage could push it down far enough. If the crank is able to fully cycle its arm then I don’t know what else you could do to improve that mechanism. Fair warning: if you try and “adjust” the arm that acts on the intermediate linkage between it and the shutter, you’ll have to be careful, because it’s really easy to gently caress it up so that it’ll jump out of alignment and not interface correctly. The way it has to sweep down on the receiving linkage without any sort of guidance at the area of interface means that there’s lots of opportunity for problems. I’m kind of a cheapskate, so I don’t want to spring for a CLA, but I also get why people online often suggest that right off the bat—these goddamn things are really temperamental.
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Apr 3, 2019 09:44
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President Beep posted:Hoo boy. I’m constantly having to gently caress with my yashica mat shutter, so it’s not just you. It’ll randomly decide to stick once in a while but work like a charm most of the time. This sounds like pretty much the same issue I'm having. I made a video to try to show what's going on, since explaining it via text seems kind of difficult: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n_ltdYLQfE
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Apr 4, 2019 21:34
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pseudorandom posted:This sounds like pretty much the same issue I'm having. I made a video to try to show what's going on, since explaining it via text seems kind of difficult: Unfortunately, I can’t provide a lot of feedback on this  I can say that I’ve used empty film spools in my Mat 124 with no problems. I vaguely remember reading about a similar problem someone was having elsewhere online, and if I remember right it was due to a missing or bent internal piece, so that the lever wasn’t fully pushing as far as needed. You can find a repair manual for the Mat 124g here - it’s more of a diagram of how all the internals work, and it may not apply to your model since you don’t have a 124 variant, but it might be a good place to start. Possibly comparing it to your model might help you find where something could be wrong. It seems like you’ll probably need to open it up further, though.
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Apr 4, 2019 21:54
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CodfishCartographer posted:Unfortunately, I can’t provide a lot of feedback on this I tried do google around to see if I could find any references to something like this, but on my first attempt didn't find anything. I did, however, find some places that recommend putting tape on the empty film spool to help prevent the gear from slipping. That did seem to fix the issue of the lever occasionally only moving halfway, however the main issue of it not moving far enough cock the shutter is still there. I might see if I can find something in my house that I could use to shim one or more of the different contact points to at least test different options.
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Apr 4, 2019 23:05
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pseudorandom posted:This sounds like pretty much the same issue I'm having. I made a video to try to show what's going on, since explaining it via text seems kind of difficult: Just got around to watching this. You should be able to rotate the crank further, which will actually allow the cocking arm to complete its downward travel and then come back up again as you continue to turn the handle clockwise. If/when you get that resolved, a bit of light oil in the cocking mechanism in the shutter might help too—it improved mine.
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Apr 5, 2019 01:09
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President Beep posted:Just got around to watching this. You should be able to rotate the crank further, which will actually allow the cocking arm to complete its downward travel and then come back up again as you continue to turn the handle clockwise. The film winding crack itself? I don't think it can go any further. The video is a little inaccurate now, because once I put some tape on the empty film spool the crank now makes complete turns, however the internal arm still doesn't move the full distance. Unless I come up with something else, my current plan is to try putting some Sugru on some of the internal parts as a shim, because I can't think of anything else I could tightly secure on those tiny parts.
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Apr 5, 2019 01:27
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Ah, okay. Sounds like you are able to cycle it then. I tried doing some half asses shimming too, but I didn’t have any luck. Tweaking the arm on the shutter itself and oiling its little gear train are what fixed it for me. It’s so goddamn finicky. As I’ve already mentioned ITT, I wish I’d gotten a model with a manually cocked shutter instead. Regarding bending the cocking arm that’s connected to the crank, I didn’t have any trouble there. It didn’t help, but it handled bending okay. Just regular steel, not cast or anything.
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Apr 5, 2019 01:36
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Kinda long shot but does anybody have any info regarding voigtlander bessa r3a rangefinder vertical alignment? I've had a search around and the website that everyone seems to link to doesn't appear to be working. I also see a lot of pictures showing a mechanism which is clearly different to mine. The alignment screws are under the hot shoe, which I've removed but people mention that the hot shoe is held on with three screws while mine is held on with four and all of the photos I've seen show a large Philips head locking screw which mine doesn't appear to have. I can see two slotted head screws quite deep inside the camera through an access hole under the hot shoe, one of which seems pretty chowdered up from somebody previously having a go at it. They both appear to be in slotted holes (one which would allow forward/backwards movement and one left to right ) but I don't really want to dick with them without being sure what they do given the horizontal alignment seems fine.
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Apr 9, 2019 11:58
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Blackhawk posted:Kinda long shot but does anybody have any info regarding voigtlander bessa r3a rangefinder vertical alignment? I've had a search around and the website that everyone seems to link to doesn't appear to be working. I also see a lot of pictures showing a mechanism which is clearly different to mine. The alignment screws are under the hot shoe, which I've removed but people mention that the hot shoe is held on with three screws while mine is held on with four and all of the photos I've seen show a large Philips head locking screw which mine doesn't appear to have. Not specifically on the R3A, but I did this exact repair on my Bessa R. Unfortunately, it was shortly before making this thread, or I would have posted about it here. I remember mine looked different from most of the pictures I could find, so I had to experiment a little bit. Turns out that the rangefinder alignment is VERY sensitive, and even putting pressure on the screw will often have a slight (non-permanent) effect on the rangefinder. So if you look through the viewfinder and just put a little pressure on one of the screws, you can see if it moves the correct way or not. If it doesn't, then just releasing the pressure will return it back to what it was with no lasting effect. Once you find the right screw, then you can adjust it as needed. I forget the details of mine, but I remember most sources of information I could find on the repair referred to the screws being in horizontal alignment, but mine were vertical (it may have been vice-versa??). I feel like for mine it was the top screw. I know it was easily accessible, as I was worried I'd need to remove the entire top plate, but luckily I didn't need to. I might still have photos I took from it, I'll check when I get home from work later today. If nothing else, you can probably use archive.org to check that site that is down. I remember running into the same problem with this fix - there's some site everyone referred to, but it was down. Luckily the wayback machine was even able to retrieve the photos from it.
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Apr 9, 2019 15:15
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Good tip re. Trying wayback machine, found a complete copy including pictures: https://web.archive.org/web/20150410074126/http://www.arransalerno.com/bessa-rangefinder-calibration/ Picture looks exactly like what I have, so assuming I can see and get access to the vertical alignment screw I'll give adjusting it a shot.
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Apr 10, 2019 00:27
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I couldn't find the pictures I had taken, but it sounds like you found some anyways. A tip before you try: once you find the right screw, you barely need to turn it at all. Mine turned fairly easily, but I've heard they can be held tightly with some kinda glue. Just be careful not to turn it too much or be too forceful with it. Turn it a bit, remove the screwdriver, check the viewfinder, repeat. You could also try watching through the VF as you turn the screw, but I found that the pressure of turning the screw made me over/under-compensate. I'd also recommend taking a very clear picture of its original position, and then turn it less than a full turn initially. That way you can return it to its current state if needed.
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Apr 10, 2019 03:34
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So I had a crack at adjusting the vertical alignment on my Bessa R3A today. Apologies for the dust :S As I mentioned previously there are three adjustment screws under the hot-shoe, which is quite easy to remove (and obviously has been on this camera before, probably for exactly the same reason I'm doing it).   The vertical alignment one is the largest screw all the way to the left (when looking from in front of the camera)  I tried to get a picture of the rangefinder patch to show how out of alignment it was, which was surprisingly difficult. You can kinda see that the double image of the roofline is quite low compared to where it should be.  I tried playing with the vertical alignment screw but it didn't seem to do anything, I could tighten it another 1/2 turn or so but that made no difference and at that point it just stopped, obviously as tight as it would go. I then tried loosening the screw which also appeared to do nothing and after a turn or so the screw was really loose and I was worried that it would fall out inside the camera. After a bit of head scratching and poking around I realised that the screw had a long un-threaded section with a shoulder at the bottom before the thread started, and there was some kind of metal lever rapped around the smooth section of screw sandwiched vertically between the shoulder on the bottom and screw head on the top. I realised that as the screw was tightened or loosened it would push this lever up and down, surely enough after I turned the screw out a few turns I saw a difference in the rangefinder patch. At that point it was very quick to align, fairly sensitive to turning the screw when it's within the correct range, previously the screw was just tightened all the way in. Unfortunately when the screw was in the correct position I could literally wobble it back and forth with my screwdriver as there didn't seem to be anything other than the tiny amount of force exerted by the lever holding it in place. I was 100% certain that it would quickly go out of alignment if I left it like that because knocks and vibration would cause the screw to turn, so I'm attempting to use some nail varnish my girlfriend had to stick the screw in place and prevent it from turning. It would have been much better if I could get the screw out completely so I could apply some loctite to the thread (I'm assuming there was from the factory) but I wasn't going to attempt that without removing the whole top of the camera, so I hope the nail varnish trick works but I'm not exactly hopeful. Blackhawk fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 00:47
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Got some "new" Zeiss! (Jena) glass for my Soviet cinder block and the lenses don't fit! I thought the refurbished breech-lock was at fault and started fiddling around with it when I noticed that Zeiss lens wasn't sitting entirely flush with the mount face. The top lug was proud of the mount surface by half a millimeter or so: There is a small screw on Pentacon Six lenses that slots into camera to orientate the lens upward and stop it from spinning when you tighten the breech-lock. The Zeiss screw sits ever so slightly further back on the barrel of the lens than the Arsenal screw. Removing the screw from the lens allowed it to sit properly and the breech-lock turned easily. I didn't want to remove the screw permanently since it is rather useful to have when mounting the lens and honestly, the lens is worth quite a bit more than the camera. So let's modify the camera.  Taking a metal file to your lens mount? Just FSU camera things. Removing the locking ring for the lens mount is simple. Loosen the retaining grub screw and spin the locking ring off. Then just give the slot a few swipes with a small file to add a little bevel to the bottom edge. Only had to remove a fraction of a millimeter of metal to get the lens to sit properly. Gaffer tape, sticky side out to catch metal filings though I'm not sure the inner workings of the Kiev-60 would notice if you added more metal filings to what the camera already comes with. Lens now mounts without issue. This lens is going to be my next project. The glass is filthy inside and out and the helicoid lubricant has turned to dust. Have a 50mm Flektogon that needs the same treatment as well. 
Sauer fucked around with this message at 02:16 on May 2, 2019 |
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May 2, 2019 00:19
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Mistakes were made! Went hunting around trying to find out what was retaining the focusing helicoids and heard a *tink*! Will go back together without issue, its just tedious to reseat aperture blades.
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May 3, 2019 00:28
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Oh, man. A good, sharp pair of angled tweezers are super handy in a case like that.
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May 3, 2019 00:56
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Nothing to it. Last time I had to do this was on a 28mm Super-Takumar. Only five blades and they were really small so a significant amount of lever force at play trying to slip the last one under the first flinging everything everywhere. These are huge and there's eight. 
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May 3, 2019 01:11
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The helicoid is held together with the typical rabbit ears. Remove them and spin the elements apart. Mark where they come apart in line with their neighboring element or the infinity marking or you will cry when trying to get them back together again and now your lens won't focus to infinity. This lens's grease could be described as "chunky".  Everything will be tossed in a bath of hot water and detergent and get a good scrub down with a tooth brush before reassembly with some helimax grease. Brutally dismember your lens to gain its power. 
Sauer fucked around with this message at 02:03 on May 3, 2019 |
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May 3, 2019 01:53
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drat, nice. I've yet to need to take apart a set of aperture blades but I know it's only a matter of time, with how often I get older lenses that I like to dissect.
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May 3, 2019 02:13
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The front lens element is not covered in smoker's goo like I thought. It really is greenish yellow all the way through. Wonder if its thorinated. Edit: Camerpedia says that the 80mm Biometar and 50mm Flektogon in P6 mount are thorinated so wouldn't surprise me if this lens was as well. My collection of radioactive lenses goes ever larger. If I start growing another arm I'm blaming Pentax. Sauer fucked around with this message at 02:29 on May 3, 2019 |
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May 3, 2019 02:21
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I goofed up the helical orientation on an old manual focus prime once. Got it back together in the end but there was a huge “oh, poo poo” moment where I kind of just froze for a few seconds, looking at the suddenly disassembled lens pieces in my hands.
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May 3, 2019 02:21
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First and last time I mucked up a helicoid was on a Helios-44. Ended up having to find the proper position by trial an error. Took forever. Now I also mark the infinity and close focus positions on the sides of the rabbit ears before disassembly to act as sanity checks. Can immediately verify if I put it back together properly without having to reassemble the entire lens and mount it. Can recommend the Helios if anyone wants to practice lens repair. They're cheap and easy to work in.
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May 3, 2019 02:30
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Speaking of practice, I've been vaguely considering picking up a busted Leica off ebay for cheap with the intention of fixing it up, but goddamn even completely ugly nonfunctional Leica iiif's are still well over a hundred dollars. I mean I know by Leica standards that's dirt cheap, but still more than I wanna spend on a project that may never work. I figure Leica is the best for this because I'm sure there's plenty of online guides to do literally any repair on one. Also I dig the looks of the old Leica iii's but that alone isn't really enough to justify dropping the $300+ for a functioning one, so spending less and fixing it up would be a fun compromise. As a nice bonus, if I can actually get one back to proper working order it would likely be worth quite a bit more than I'd paid for it.
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May 3, 2019 05:48
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God dammit. My X-700 crapped out. Advance lever jammed and the meter lights would go as soon as I’d depress the shutter release button. Did some reading online and pretty much every resource I found made it sound like my experience was a classic failed capacitor scenario. Great, I thought, I’ll pick some up and swap them out. No biggie. Went for the easier bottom capacitor first. No improvement. Delved into the top one, thinking that would be the solution. Nope! Still no luck. I then carefully cocked the shutter by sliding it to the left with my fingers. After that I was able to move the advance lever. As soon as I’d try and fire it it the lever jams all over again. poo poo! I really don’t want to tear this thing down to the bare bones, but I can only imagine that for some reason when the shutter is cocked via the advance lever that it’s setting the camera up for a fail state. The shutter moves easily when I reset it with my fingers, but it definitely drags when cycling the advance lever. Thinking back, I was having some weird shutter drag show up once every roll or so... Am I gonna have to strip this thing down? Other than this problem it’s in really nice shape, and I like the camera, but holy poo poo does tearing it down far enough to inspect the rollers and whatnot look like a pain in the rear end.
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May 11, 2019 03:48
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President Beep posted:God dammit. My X-700 crapped out. Advance lever jammed and the meter lights would go as soon as I’d depress the shutter release button. Did some reading online and pretty much every resource I found made it sound like my experience was a classic failed capacitor scenario. Great, I thought, I’ll pick some up and swap them out. No biggie. Oof, I've never opened up an X700 but that sounds like a pain in the rear end. Sounds like possibly something wrong with the internal gears? That'd make sense for a jam and also not fully cocking the shutter. No idea how much of a pain in the rear end it'd be to fix it, though. That's a shame because that camera rules. e: on the other hand, stripping it down completely WOULD make some good fodder for this thread
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May 11, 2019 03:57
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I probably will tear into it, sharing my misadventures here. In the meantime, I’ve got an SRT-201 on the way. I’ve got some nice SR glass and a macro bellows that I haven’t even used yet, so I don’t want to abandon this ecosystem, but I I want something bulletproof and mechanical. The X-700 looks brand new, and I’m mega bummed that it crapped out. The program and aperture priority modes were great.
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May 11, 2019 16:47
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After a few screw ups with other bodies I don't feel comfortable doing full strip downs on my own anymore. One wrong move and everything goes *SPROING* all over the place. Send that body off to Garry, he still fixes Minoltas.
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May 11, 2019 16:49
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President Beep posted:I probably will tear into it, sharing my misadventures here. In the meantime, I’ve got an SRT-201 on the way. I’ve got some nice SR glass and a macro bellows that I haven’t even used yet, so I don’t want to abandon this ecosystem, but I I want something bulletproof and mechanical. That's how I got my X-700, by unsuccessfully tearing down my SRT-101.
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May 11, 2019 17:12
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I have a Rolleiflex 2.8C. The PC sync socket looks dirty and corroded, and doesn't seem to be able to make a good connection - a connected flash sometimes fires, sometimes doesn't. This happens with both a normal PC sync cord and a Rolleiflex-specific one (that has the collar that's supposed to be held by those small wires moved out of the way by the release knob). Does anyone have some advice on how to clean it up nicely? e: I cleaned it nicely, but it turned out my flash just had dodgy batteries
k-zed fucked around with this message at 23:17 on May 14, 2019 |
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May 13, 2019 13:42
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I picked up a Minolta SRT 303b with a stuck shutter button and film advance with the intention to try and repair it. Has anyone run into this issue before and can give me a clue at where to start looking? I'll be printing out the service manual at work and picking up Ziploc bags to start the disassembly this evening, I've had the covers off it already and was very intimidated, but at least I can't make it more broke.
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Jun 2, 2019 21:36
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What’s the second shutter curtain up to? There’s a little spring loaded striker under the bottom plate that thwacks a pawl attached to a gear in order to complete the exposure cycle. If that mechanism is dried out/sticky then it can’t produce enough striking force so things lock up. Maybe try a bit of light oil there? That part’s been discussed ITT, I think by me, so you may find some useful links upthread.
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Jun 2, 2019 22:17
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Megabound posted:I picked up a Minolta SRT 303b with a stuck shutter button and film advance with the intention to try and repair it. Has anyone run into this issue before and can give me a clue at where to start looking? How "stuck" is the shutter button? I "fixed" a stuck shutter button on a Canon AE-1 by just swapping out the top housing for a new one, found a new top on ebay for like ten bucks. But if the lever is stuck too, it may be something jamming both of them. Do either of them move at all? If so, how far? What is the resistance like when they get stuck, is it sudden? Jerky? Sticky? Etc
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Jun 2, 2019 22:31
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President Beep posted:What’s the second shutter curtain up to? There’s a little spring loaded striker under the bottom plate that thwacks a pawl attached to a gear in order to complete the exposure cycle. If that mechanism is dried out/sticky then it can’t produce enough striking force so things lock up. Maybe try a bit of light oil there? Thanks for the tip, that doesn't seem to be the issue. The camera appears to be cocked and read for a shot as the striker is sitting behind the return lever, ready to whip around and and return the mirror. CodfishCartographer posted:How "stuck" is the shutter button? I "fixed" a stuck shutter button on a Canon AE-1 by just swapping out the top housing for a new one, found a new top on ebay for like ten bucks. But if the lever is stuck too, it may be something jamming both of them. Do either of them move at all? If so, how far? What is the resistance like when they get stuck, is it sudden? Jerky? Sticky? Etc It feels like it stuck all the way down, so very. If I manually disengage the ratchet mechanism the lever winds smoothly so I know it's not something gumming up that. I think there's no simple cure for it so it'll be coming apart completely. I printed off the service manual today so I'll be setting aside a day to tear it down and see if I can find the issue. E: The self timer isn't returning past 45 degrees and appears to be the root of the problem, a battery might fix it but at least it's a good place to start Megabound fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Jun 3, 2019 |
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Jun 3, 2019 09:42
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Cool. Sounds like you’ve definitely narrowed it down. A battery unfortunately won’t help though, as the SRTs are all fully mechanical—battery powers the meter only.
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Jun 3, 2019 17:34
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This is probably something simple but I've never had to deal with it before so I'm not quite sure what's wrong. I've got a black fleck showing up in my photos. I tried changing the lens, but it's still there, so I assume it's something on the sensor? It only showed up about halfway through the batch of photos I was shooting and it's not always at the same angle. 
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Nov 4, 2019 16:01
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Djeser posted:This is probably something simple but I've never had to deal with it before so I'm not quite sure what's wrong. I've got a black fleck showing up in my photos. I tried changing the lens, but it's still there, so I assume it's something on the sensor? It only showed up about halfway through the batch of photos I was shooting and it's not always at the same angle. Yeah, that's likely some sensor dust. You can try using an air blower (something similar to this ), those are nice for cleaning sensors.
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Nov 4, 2019 16:46
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Note: do NOT use a can of compressed air on anything camera related, use a hand blower like k-zed linked. Compressed air cans have propellants and poo poo inside that can stick to the sensor and that's a LOT harder to get off than a few dust specs.
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Nov 4, 2019 16:55
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Yeah, I picked up one of these a while back since I needed lens cleaning solution. Thanks!
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Nov 4, 2019 18:28
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| # ? Apr 30, 2024 09:32 |
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If youre looking to take your cleaning to the next and final level, pick up a big box of kimwipes. They are the best wipes you fan buy for everything and they cost basically nothing.
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Nov 4, 2019 23:20
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