My Minolta a-7/Maxxum 7 Won't Rewind Film. Any suggestions? :(

[manfrominternet]

My beloved Minolta a-7/Maxxum 7/Dynax 7 has been working great for a while. The last three times I’ve used it, however, when the film roll was finished, I’d hear a whirring sound that didn’t really sound like my film was being rolled back into its canister… and then the rear screen goes blank. The batteries are fine, so this is an odd situation indeed. The first time this happened, I managed to open the rear of the a-7 using a hack (without damaging anything). I thought this was a one-off. That said, I replaced the battery, but it happened 2 more subsequent times. I had to use a dark tent/film changing bag to open up the back of the Minolta a-7 to retrieve the film and rewind the film into the canister by hand, which is not fun. I suppose the clutch for the rewind system isn’t working properly/has old lubricant that doesn’t allow the film rewind clutch to catch, but of course I’m not sure.

Do any of you guys know how I can possibly fix this (outside of buying another a-7 (or even an a-9))? Preferably by myself?

Any help on this would be very greatly appreciated.

 

[Paul Howell]

Could be anything from just a lose connection to a bad chip set, the film advance and rewind motor is still good. I don't know of a camera repair shop that will do anything but clean lube and adjust on Minolta A mounts. At this point, if you have come to the conclusion that you have nothing to lose check the past threads on the tear down, look for anything that seems lose. If you want to replace it, another 7, but as live the LA area with lots of glare I would think twice about a 9. Here is the desert southwest it so bright that most of the year I cannot see the faint viewfinder readout. My day to day shooter has been a 800SI, my battery grip has just gone south but it works fine with a lithum battery. For the money the 9XI is a good bet, like the 800 I can see the read viewfinder LEDs without issues. It is an odd camera, like the 9 top shutter of 1/1200 of a second, but uses program cards that pulg in for advanced functions like bracketing, sports or landscape mode. There is a battery grip but it was desinged to shoot at 5 FPS with the standard CR5 battery. As I shoot in manual mode most of the time the lack of advanced featrures has not not been an issue for me. The other disadvantage of the 9 is its weight, stainless steel body, by the end of along day shooting I notice it.