A Prontor SVS shutter really slow...

GeorgesGiralt

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Hi !
I've got this nice Isolette III with it's light tight bellows ! (yes, light tight !!!)
The shutter was sticky so I dump it into lighter fluid, and let it dry.
Now, it runs (even the self timer works) but is slow. The second equals two and the 1/300 is near 1/100.
Do you fellas have a maintenance manual for this shutter ? Preferably on electronic format to reduce costs.
Thanks a lot in advance for my pockettable medium format camera !
 

Fotoguy20d

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See:

http://pheugo.com/cameras/index.php?page=prontor
 
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GeorgesGiralt

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Toulouse, Fr
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Thanks !
But I've seen it (Google is my friend ;-) ).
I'm looking for something more complete and describing how to adjust the speeds. So I thought that the maintenance manual will do the trick ;-)
In fact the shutter runs very fine except it is a bit slow, by more than a stop. Not bad for it's age and given the fact it was a cheap mechanism when new.
 

epatsellis

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The prontor was never a "cheap" shutter, from what I've gathered, they were the premium shutter. You probably still have a bit of gunk in it, did you remove the front cover when you cleaned it?


erie
 
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GeorgesGiralt

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Toulouse, Fr
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yes, Erie, I've removed all covers.
I bathed the shutter in lighter fluid, exercising it into the bath (amazing the junk that goes out the box !) then !I soaked it into ethanol spirit to remove as much as I could of the old grease then immersed again in lighter fluid and then after a couple of hours let to dry over night. I greased the arming mechanism and put a really tiny drop of grease on the parts sliding one above another (there was grease on them before servicing).
I know the timing mechanism can be adjusted but I do not know how to do it. This is what I'm looking for. The noise is continuous during all time it take to go so I know the shutter should be clean. Just running slow. The arming mechanism is as smooth as a baby, and I've greased a bit the case where the self timer spring is running, but to no avail.
 

epatsellis

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I would do 2 things: a micro drop of oil on all the shafts of the escapement (the geared part..), after oiling (and allowing a day or so for the oil to settle in, there are 2 screws that attache the escapement, loosen them both slightly, you will notice that the one nearest the escapement lever (that catches the shutter leaf actuating mechanism) can move slightly, closer is faster (I think) and farther is slower (or vice versa). oiling should get you 99% of the way there, adjust the 1 sec. first, then check to see where the others fall (Ignoring the highest speed, they're neverclose anyway)

erie
 
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