Hey all! I really wanted a Pentax Auto 110 Super (I have the best SLR in the world and figured I should also own the worst).
I had a functional non-super and the service manual for the non-super but seem to have managed to fix it up.
The symptom was that the shutter would never cock properly -- if you wound the camera the shutter would open and close (which differed from the regular 110 which of course would not open the shutter on film wind). Some shops refused to touch the 110 for probably obvious reasons so I figured I'd have a go at it myself.
I was able to identify the shutter cocking mechanism in both cameras and it was clear the latter shutter mechanism wasn't catching for some reason. The arm that appears to be attached in some fashion to the shutter is annotated here with a handy arrow:
The lever moves in the "down" direction to cock the shutter.
On a hunch a sprayed some electrical contact cleaner in the area, let it dry, and used a small screwdriver to manually press the lever towards the cocked position where it clicked. After that I was able to properly cock and fire the shutter with the mechanism.
Unclear how long it will stay working but very cool to have a functional Super version.
Here are some frame scans I've taken:
Side note: if anyone has a good method for punching evenly spaced holes in film, it would be cool to try Ektar in one of these. The other bummer is that the film comes from the factory with these pre-burned "frame areas" which fog the extra visible area on the periphery. We need maximum fidelity of course.
I had a functional non-super and the service manual for the non-super but seem to have managed to fix it up.
The symptom was that the shutter would never cock properly -- if you wound the camera the shutter would open and close (which differed from the regular 110 which of course would not open the shutter on film wind). Some shops refused to touch the 110 for probably obvious reasons so I figured I'd have a go at it myself.
I was able to identify the shutter cocking mechanism in both cameras and it was clear the latter shutter mechanism wasn't catching for some reason. The arm that appears to be attached in some fashion to the shutter is annotated here with a handy arrow:
The lever moves in the "down" direction to cock the shutter.
On a hunch a sprayed some electrical contact cleaner in the area, let it dry, and used a small screwdriver to manually press the lever towards the cocked position where it clicked. After that I was able to properly cock and fire the shutter with the mechanism.
Unclear how long it will stay working but very cool to have a functional Super version.
Here are some frame scans I've taken:
Side note: if anyone has a good method for punching evenly spaced holes in film, it would be cool to try Ektar in one of these. The other bummer is that the film comes from the factory with these pre-burned "frame areas" which fog the extra visible area on the periphery. We need maximum fidelity of course.