Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dan: Leica's problem is that since they have a normal wind lever and a very robustly made camera, it takes just too much energy to get all that top grade metal moving. In the case of your Minolta and similiar cameras, there is a lot less mass that needs to get accelerated when the motor runs. In other words, most cameras have adopted low mass plastic gear trains. You can tell just by the weight of the R8 that there isn't much platic in it. If you read between the lines, what Leica said is they were trying to solve a power consumption problem. I imagine they could get six frames per second out of it, but the motor would probably need a car battery over your shoulder to be able to supply the current required. Regards, Robert At 10:55 AM 8/2/99 -0400, you wrote: >The motor in my minolta 9 (sorry that I keep mentioning that camera, I >can't help myself ;-), putters along at 5.5 fps on two stinky little >lithium batteries, and the motor is builtin to the camera, no attachment or >booster required. Perhaps this is the camera Leica should be reverse >engineering. > >Dan C. > >NO ARCHIVE > >At 10:33 AM 02-08-99 -0500, you wrote: >>I think what happened in the development of the Leica R8 motor drive is that >>the engineers (I am sure the Leica engineers are very good ones to a fault) >>are going nuts over the differences in motor drive speed when you use Nicads >>vs alkalines vs lithiums. >> >>In my Nikon F3, I have the Nicad pack for the drive and have also used >>alkalines with the standard battery pack. With the nicads film flies >>through the camera. The rate on that camera with the mirror up is something >>like 5.5 frames per second and 4.5 with the mirror operational. >> >>The camera is more responsive with the nicads, but I am sure Leica is >>worried about long term survival of their motor. I think they are very gun >>shy as they probably got burned by the previous supplier. All they have to >>do is look at the F3 motor and do some stealing back technology. >> >>gck >> >> >> >> >> > >