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CJ
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 01:03 pm: | 
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Hi All,
I recently picked up a Konica FT-1 Motor in 'basket case' condition, and have some questions about trying to make it serviceable. Below are some observations & questions:
- on opening the back of the camera, I noticed that the shutter is in the 'open' state (you can see directly through the lens when looking through the back) and the mirror is up.
- I got the battery compartment off, got rid of the four acid (?) encrusted AAA Energizer alkalines, and soaked the battery cover in a 3:1 mixture of water and vinegar.
- the contacts are rusted. I did some cursory cleaning of them as best I could, but haven't made them 'shiny'. I'm going to look for one of those pen-type contact cleaner tools at an electronics store.
- last night, just as a 'test run', I got out an unused 123 lithium battery, (3v) and ran a couple of wires to the positive and negative contacts on the body. No joy; the camera didn't do a thing.
Does the FT-1 Motor operate on 3 volts, or perhaps 6? I can't tell how the wiring is in the battery cover--whether it's series/parallel or some unknown combinatinon.
Please advise!
Thank you all,
-CJ |
CJ
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 01:09 pm: |
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Addendum, and clarification:
Last night I loaded the battery cover up with new AAA batteries, attached it to the body, and again, got nothing in terms of sound or signs of life from the camera. I'm chalking that up to not really polishing the contacts.
Also--the two metal contacts on the body (which meet up with contacts on the battery holder) have a bit of corrosion on them, and the negative polarity body contact has that funky green stuff on it. Can I just chip that off, or do I need to take more invasive measures?
-CJ |
Glenn Middleton
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 02:58 pm: |
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Would not know where to start on your camera,but corrosion as you have described can cause havoc to the wires that are soldered to the corroded contacts.That funky green stuff may have booked your camera a place in the local reclamation centre.However you scrape it off then polish the contacts.Next check all the wires for continuity before doing anything else.Good luck. |
M Currie
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 07:26 am: |
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The FT-1 runs on six volts, and won't do much of anything if the voltage falls below about 5-1/2 volts. I just took an ohmmeter to mine, to see what can be tested on the body. Unfortunately, it seems to give no information from the right-hand (+) body contact with or without the power on, but the left-hand one should be a dead short to the body of the camera. On mine the battery case is always a little tricky to get in right, and I don't know how forgiving the contacts are, but I've often had fairly good luck on old corroded equipment by scraping down the the bare metal, and where possible without heat damage, applying a little nub of solder to the cleaned contact. The solder will continue to tarnish but cleans up easily.
There was an accessory battery holder made for these that held AA batteries. Hard to come by, I think (someone else was seeking one here and as far as I know found none), but if you can find another holder, that would be a step in the right direction.
Good luck with this one. Mine, by the way, is defective in a different way: the auto exposure system always sets the aperture at F16, regardless of what the meter claims it's doing. The camera itself was cheaply bought at a yard sale with a Kiron lens that fits my T3, and I was going to retire it, but because it's the only motor driven camera I own I have armed it with a cheap 500 mm. mirror lens which has no aperture anyway, as a potential beater camera to keep in the car in case any eagles or lake monsters should happen by. |
CJ
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 11:49 am: |
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Thank you both for the information. I'm going to have at the contacts today or tomorrow, get them shiny, and figure out where to go from there.
-CJ |
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