(Making this a separate thread -- I'm full of questions today. 
)
Specifically, is dry firing an SQ-A without a lens installed a no-no?
My recent "Bronicatastrophe" has me in egineering post-mortem mode wondering if I may have caused the problem. One of my major exercises a month or so before the problem appeared was using the little bugger with a homemade pinhole and shutter assembly on a body cap. Empirically I determined I could use the normal shutter release to open up the mirror and film shutter, then expose with the pinhole. I ran three rolls of film through it, switching occasionally between regular 80 mm lens and pinhole without apparent incident on Worldwide PP Day. I did a similar exercise for just a few shots days before the final discombobulation.
BUT -- now I'm wondering -- could this dry firing have provoked something? When I got a replacement body yesterday, I discovered I couldn't get my like-new 80mm lens off the old body - the release button wouldn't slide. (Now there was a moment of panic.) The crank wouldn't turn, the shutter wouldn't fire, removing/replacing the back had no effect and flipping to multi-exposure did nothing. Today, with the back off, since the mirror is up, I noticed a little widget in a curved slot at the front of the body. Teased it with a pencil -- voila! The shutter was then able to cock and I took the lens off. So I was playing with just the body in ME mode and noticed one of the strange little mechanical links visible on the right side of the lens mounting (viewed from front) seemed to be moving a bit sluggishly. If I helped it, the cycle could be restarted. So now I wonder, does this linkage theoretically depend on the tension of the lens shutter cocking pins to operate -- or is it just a side effect of whatever is botched up inside the body? It still won't fire via cable release, so there is something wrong besides the sluggish link.
Yeah, I know this is grasping at straws, but I have this curiosity about such things. I figured it can't hurt to tap the collective wisdom here. :rolleyes:
DaveT
)Specifically, is dry firing an SQ-A without a lens installed a no-no?
My recent "Bronicatastrophe" has me in egineering post-mortem mode wondering if I may have caused the problem. One of my major exercises a month or so before the problem appeared was using the little bugger with a homemade pinhole and shutter assembly on a body cap. Empirically I determined I could use the normal shutter release to open up the mirror and film shutter, then expose with the pinhole. I ran three rolls of film through it, switching occasionally between regular 80 mm lens and pinhole without apparent incident on Worldwide PP Day. I did a similar exercise for just a few shots days before the final discombobulation.
BUT -- now I'm wondering -- could this dry firing have provoked something? When I got a replacement body yesterday, I discovered I couldn't get my like-new 80mm lens off the old body - the release button wouldn't slide. (Now there was a moment of panic.) The crank wouldn't turn, the shutter wouldn't fire, removing/replacing the back had no effect and flipping to multi-exposure did nothing. Today, with the back off, since the mirror is up, I noticed a little widget in a curved slot at the front of the body. Teased it with a pencil -- voila! The shutter was then able to cock and I took the lens off. So I was playing with just the body in ME mode and noticed one of the strange little mechanical links visible on the right side of the lens mounting (viewed from front) seemed to be moving a bit sluggishly. If I helped it, the cycle could be restarted. So now I wonder, does this linkage theoretically depend on the tension of the lens shutter cocking pins to operate -- or is it just a side effect of whatever is botched up inside the body? It still won't fire via cable release, so there is something wrong besides the sluggish link.
Yeah, I know this is grasping at straws, but I have this curiosity about such things. I figured it can't hurt to tap the collective wisdom here. :rolleyes:
DaveT
