Way to go Peter! It sure feels good to fix your own stuff without having
to pay $$$$.
Steve Larson
Redondo Beach, California
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Spiro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 5:47 PM
Subject: Fixed my battery eating Pentax MX
> A while back I e-mailed the list mentioning that I had an MX that would
> completely drain the batteries after a few of days, even though the LEDs
in
> the viewfinder were off.
>
> I was able to fix it with the help of the MX repair manual that a PDML
> member very kindly posted at http://www.robertstech.com/pentax.htm
>
> The key piece of info that this manual revealed is that if the voltage
drops
> below 2.7, the LED lights go off. What this suggested to me is that the
> meter could be drawing a considerable amount of power even though the LEDs
> are off. (My electronics knowledge is a bit sketchy, but I think the
light
> meter uses a resistor, which presumably would use the energy to generate a
> bit of heat. It doesn't have to create a lot of heat to drain two tiny
> batteries.)
>
> I saw from the diagram that the meter coupling to the shutter release
lever
> was right down at the bottom, and accessible by unscrewing the bottom
plate.
> Down there is a tiny switch that consists of two springy pieces of
brass
> colored metal that touch to make the LEDs light up. What happens when you
> press down on the button is that a tiny arm that holds up one half of this
> switch allows it to go down and contact the other one.
>
> When I opened the bottom plate of my camera, I found that these two tiny
> pieces of metal were in contact even when the shutter release was not
pushed
> down. All I had to do is bend one of them slightly to keep them from
> contacting when they shouldn't. I should note that the distance between
> the open and closed position is less than a millimeter. Pentax really
> gambled on close tolerances here, in the hope that nothing would disturb
> these tiny, fragile pieces of metal.
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