Re: [Leica] My M6 TTL drains battery even when off!

[John Collier <jbcollier@home.com>]

The TTL has two small test contacts under the regular contacts in the
battery compartment. Sometimes, vibration during transport, these contacts
work their way up until they contact the battery and cause a drain even if
the camera is turned off. The best thing to do is push the contacts down
with the tip of a ball point pen and then put a small piece of black tape
under the main contact covering these two troublesome contacts (Thanks to
Tom A. for passing this on to us). It was the first thing that I did to my
TTL and I have had no problems at all. To test for a draw, just install the
battery, leaving the cover off and complete the circuit with a
milli-ammeter. Here is a link to the message in the archives on what I found
with my Fluke meter:

http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/v17/msg07164.html

John Collier

> From: Tristan Tom <tt@tristan.net>
> 
> Last week, I purchased a brand new black M6 TTL and used it for a few
> rolls, in the proper manner (ie. turning it off and not leaving the
> shutter cocked when storing) and the battery ran completely dead in
> only two days. I then bought a brand new battery, measured it's
> voltage with a multimeter (3.63v) and installed it into the M6 TTL
> (off, shutter not cocked). A few hours later, I came back and
> measured the battery voltage, which was now 3.25v!
> 
> I concluded that my unit was draining the battery even when off.
> Since it is new, I sent it back to the vendor for a replacement. This
> was a bit disconcerting, given the fact that it's a Leica. I hope
> that I just got a bad unit and this is not indicative of the M6 TTL
> model. By the way, the serial number of the faulty unit is in the
> 24xxxxxx range while the replacement unit that the vendor is sending
> me is in the 25xxxxxx range (I had them check, because I didn't want
> a replacement unit from the same batch)...
>