| Author |
Message |
    
WernerJB
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 24, 2005 - 07:57 am: | 
|
At present I am hooked on Fuicas, especially after the successful repair/ restoration of two previously wrecked Compact Deluxes. But the third specimen (the one that looks best !) turned out to be a real poser: why does the meter only work intermittently ? I thought I knew Fujicas like my pocket and started to dismantle it right after I had discovered that the culprit was one of the wires leading to the insulating block where the LDR (aka CdS cell) is soldered to. Basically and not considering the winding being done in south-east position, the camera's design is similar to that of the Fujica V 2 (thumb wheel focusing, lens construction), but as the devil is a busy man he made the internals of the Compact Deluxe be vexingly different: I cannot lift the lens carrier out even after removing what is usually necessary to do this, so I cannot give the wire the attention it probably needs. Does that mean I also have to remove the transport and release mechanism to get access to the flip side of the lens barrel ? Compared to this camera the G-III QL seems anything but difficult, so - before I accidentally trigger off this camera's self destruction mechanism - any help is thankfully appreciated ! |
WernerJB
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 03:22 pm: |
|
Too late for your help now, have solved the problem by myself.
For all those who are interested, here is what I found out: the lens carrier/ barrel of the Fujica Compact Deluxe can only be removed if you take out the release mechanism as well, as its linkages (winding the shutter, aperture actuator, etc) reach into the barrel. As the camera has no helicoil but a telescopic shift mechanism ("thumb wheel") incl. RF coupling, it is necessary to remove the curved spring and the central slothead steel screw on top of the lens barrel, but one has to be careful, it has a lefthanded thread. Repair of anything inside this camera like the wires leading to the LDR/ CdS cell requires a complete knockdown to the bone! Taking off the lightmeter and RF array is easy (2 x 1 brass slothead screw, 2 x 2 black steal crosshead screws). The lens carrier is fixed to the body by three brass slothead screws which are not quite easy to locate deep in the camera body, or put back later on !
Every camera tells a story: this one had very obviously been used at the beach (there was a lot of sand inside) and oxidation inside the lens barrel and one of the two soldering joints (mounted on movable pins) of the above mentioned wire showed the typical signs of corrosion caused by saltwater preventing electric current, repairing this was easy (resoldering, contact spray). |
|
