Bronica SQ-A shutter problem

Hi everyone. I have a question about the Sq-a I bought on ebay a few weeks back. I think the shutter is kaput, but I need another opinion (I've already consulted two different local camera stores for help). Just to let you know, yes, I have the darkslide out, the batteries are fresh and the shutter lock is off. It took me a while to figure those things out, thank goodness for online manuals, lol.

I can fire the shutter (with or without the speed grip attached) if I set the shutter to multiple exposures, but of course that doesn't advance the film and makes for some crappy photos. But if I set it to a single exposure, the shutter won't lock to fire. I can just keep winding and winding the film and it advances, but the shutter stays open without firing. Does that make any sense?

One guy at my camera store told me that I could fire the shutter on the multiple exposure setting and then switch it to the single exposure setting to advance the film and just keep switching it back and forth. If I were planning on keeping the camera, that's what I would do. However, I was hoping to resell it on ebay to fund my even more recent purchase of an Sq-ai. If the shutter is toast, then I'm out some money that I was really counting on.

Does anyone have any other ideas? Neither of the people I consulted here in town are Bronica shooters, so maybe we're all missing something really obvious. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. I am at the end of my rope.

Hmmm-I'm relatively new to Bronica, but if I'm reading you correctly, this could possibly be a bad back. The film indexing is done magically by the internal workings of the insert portion of the back. I have an SQ-A and with the first back I got, the film wound all the way through without stopping. With a different back, everything worked. It's a bugger diagnosing these beasties without additional components to swap. (Fortunately, an attack of G.A.S. has been rectifying that spare parts deficiency. )

DaveT

Thanks Dave, I didn't think about trying a different back. I am recently recovering from a bout of G.A.S. (diagnosed by Suzanne Revy ) and so I have a 120 and a 220 that I can try out on it. Thanks!

There was a thread a week or so back where someone else was having a problem with the mirror on an SQ possibly due to a faulty mirror-lock control, and there is a link to a Bronica Tips page on (my) final post. There is some info there on problems, although I'm not sure yours was covered. Dave has suggested a possible back problem and I'm wondering if you've tried the back with your SQA-I?

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

That was it Dave -bad back! Wahoo! Thank you SO much for you help!

Thanks for the link to the other thread, Peter. I'm going to read up on Bronicas in this forum as much as I can. I can't wait to get shooting.

Glad to hear you've solved your problem, Jodi! And GAS... whoever said anything about GAS!

Glad to hear you got it working. I certainly don't have enough Bronica experience to approach any of these problems with a sense of confidence. But each new thread helps expand the knowledge base a little.

Working, it's a fun camera!

DaveT

My SQ-A stuff

I think I have a fix for this.

I just got my SQ about 3 days ago, and shot my first MF rolls (ever!) today. I just encountered the same problem as the original poster. I managed to get through a roll of 220 using the multiple exposure/single exposure method. It was a real pain, though.

I did some digging, and here's what I found:

Here's the back of the camera body:


In order for everything to work right and the shutter to fire, the camera needs to know that the dark slide is removed and that there is film present. There are probably more interlocks with the lens and the viewfinder and the phase of the moon and all, but I'm just concentrating on the ones that I think may be causing the problem related to the back. Since these and the film advance gear are the only communication between the back and the body (at least on my SQ), the problem must lie somewhere in one of these pins:

When the camera is operated without the back installed, it behaves exactly as it did with my 220 back (the one that didn't work right)- the shutter cocks, but you never get to that "stop winding the film already and let me take a picture!" mode.

When the film interlock is pushed in, the camera behaves normally. Aha. So the problem must be in the film interlock.

Here's a picture of the back showing the film and dark slide interlocks:



Further inspection of my (good but quite worn and well-loved) 120 back showed a critical difference between the two backs:

Bad 220 back:


Good 120 back:


The pin that indicates whether film is present is bent on the 220. This pin engages in the little barrel thing on the base of the back. The barrel has its own pin, held captive. It is this pin that pushes on the pin in the body responsible for making the decision as to whether you get to fire the shutter or just wind film all day. The pin-and-mechanical interlock engineering department at Bronica must have been vast and well-populated.

So I got my handy folding knife, bent the pin on the 220 back (or, more correctly, the insert) so that it was in about the same place as the 120 back, loaded some film, and voila: the winding process stopped at frame 1 with the shutter cocked and ready to go. First frame went as it should, and the camera advanced to the second frame.

It's fairly easy to see how ham-handed assembly of the insert to the back (which I will freely admit to, being new to the system and all) could cause this. If the insert is put into the stationary portion of the back first, rather than into the rotating part of the cover, I think this problem will be less likely.

I have *NO* idea how the back knows whether it's got film in it or not. Nothing obvious appears to be going on here, so I'm going to assume it's magic for now because I've only got two backs and don't think knowing is worth sacrificing one of them. I'm just betting there's all sorts of little springs held captive somewhere. Springs that are yearning to be free and find a home somewhere unfindable behind my desk.

I hope this helps somebody in future to save a bad Bronica back.

Cheers,
James
Stillwater, MN

I went ahead ad opened a spare 220 back I had (and never use). When there is film loaded. As you crank the film winder the film rolls along the top roller with then turns the film counter. Under the film counter is 2 disks with slots cut in them. When the slots line up the film advanced pin is pushed out of the back. This tells the camera body that the film has been advanced to the next frame.



This was as far as I took apart my back because it still works perfectly and there are some very small springs in there.

I hope this helps someone.

--Chris

As a Bronica SQ user, I thank you.

p.s. you can never have too many backs. They come up cheap on KEH.COM if you go for the 'ugly' grade. One 'ugly' I got worked perfectly. The other one just needed light seals replaced, a ten minute operation.

This is sooo typical :rolleyes:

I just spent two hours figuring out how to dissect my 220 back, and then deducing that the tip of the pin was bent. It looked funny but it did move well enough that I was thrown off for a while.

(The bent up tip causes the bottom surface of the internal section of the pin to bind against a spring tower. Everything moved when directly poked, and the action worked - somewhat sluggishly - when off the camera, but there was enough frictional drag to screw up the finely balanced interplay between camera and back. The back pushes the pin to say, 'stop winding' and the camera pushes back to reset the back and say 'I need another frame, tell me when to stop winding.')

Only NOW, after putting everything back together, did I find find this thread!

"What a doofus!"
"Oh, well, it was more fun doing it on my own..." (Yea, right!)


Anyway... YES, the wind knob retaining screw is reverse threaded! I nearly buggered the screw head before an inspired "Doh!" moment set me on the right path.

Many years later, I had the same problem with the 120J 6x4,5 back of my new (to me) bronica sq-a. I had to understand how to fix it without the photos, because they are not available anymore, but i managed to do it with your explanation; and now its working. I'd just bend the tip with a little flat srewdriver.
So thanks a lot to all of you, and thanks internet for all this invaluable information.

I faced to the same yesterday. I decided to add pictures so it's easier to understand for those finding this thread. How explained above, the back uses two needle-like parts to communicate with the body, one should mark the dark side injected, when yes, the pin is out. This is on the left side of the next image. The other is the film position marker, it's always out on the back side which pushes the body side's pin telling the next frame is ready. When fired, the camera pushes the pin back which tells the back to go to the next frame. This is on the right side in the picture showing the body:




See the next picture with the back, the dark lock is at the bottom right corner. Notice: it must go back on its own when the slide is removed.



Here the disassembled back showing the pin outside of its tube. It may be bent a little but otherwise it should just be easy to push with a screwdriver.


What I did was to apply lubrification on both pins so they are free to move.