Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/06

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Shutter speed problems on R7: strange new events
From: Martin Howard <howard.390@osu.edu>
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2000 16:52:55 -0500

Ray Moth jotted down the following:

> Martin, it sounds as though the camera does indeed take its power from
> the MD when attached, although I wasn't aware of that. Maybe your R7
> has some slight electrical resistance between the contacts in the
> shutter speed selector, due to oxidation and/or accumulated dirt. This
> may be sufficient to defeat the lower voltage of old batteries but not
> new ones. If this is the case, I would expect it to be a problem
> especially with alkaline cells, since their voltage falls off as they
> are used up. BTW, does the shutter selector work OK using the camera
> batteries, i.e. without the MD attached?

The R7 should, according to all sources on the matter, only ever be powered
by the four 1.5V batteries in the camera body.  So no, it doesn't draw its
current from the winder or MD when this is attached.  Hence my suprise at
the affects.

The shutter seletor DID work perfectly once I removed the MD.  It also works
perfectly now that I've replaced the batteries in the MD.  However, since
the camera body is supposed not to draw any current from the MD in any case
- -- attached or not -- it seems peculiar to me that low battery voltage in
the MD caused the problems it did.

Perhaps this is just another example of Leica electronics engineering.  Ever
noticed the similarity between the names "Leica" and "Lucas"?  Both are six
letters long.  Both share an "L", "a" and "c".  Hmm...

M.

- -- 
Martin Howard                 | Super Cali goes ballistic, Celtics are
Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU   | atrocious.
email: howard.390@osu.edu     |       -- British sports headline.
www: http://mvhoward.i.am/    +-------------------------------------------