So this weekend I got around to soldering a diode into my Nikkormat FTN to adapt it for a 1.5 volt battery. It seems to be working pretty well, and it really is quite easy to do. However I noticed something interesting I thought I’d mention.
The instructions are to remove the top plate (about 5 minutes work total) an look for the red wire near the rewind crank. I should have taken a picture, but the red wire had a ~4mm section in the middle, already bare with a clear plastic sheath over the bare pare so it didn’t ground on anything. So all I had to do was slide the plastic out of the way, cut the bare area in the middle, then solder the diode in between. (I also used heat shrink since the existing plastic sheath wouldn’t have made it over the diode.)
That bare area and the sheath were clearly in there from the factory, like they were planning for people to modify it later for different voltage batteries. Has anyone else done the same job, and noticed how the red wire had been prepared?
EDIT: now that this camera’s meter is closer to accurate, this is easily my favorite camera. It feels perfect in my hand, everything g is solid and in great working condition. It just feels right. I also love that the focusing screen in micro prism only, without the split prism.
The instructions are to remove the top plate (about 5 minutes work total) an look for the red wire near the rewind crank. I should have taken a picture, but the red wire had a ~4mm section in the middle, already bare with a clear plastic sheath over the bare pare so it didn’t ground on anything. So all I had to do was slide the plastic out of the way, cut the bare area in the middle, then solder the diode in between. (I also used heat shrink since the existing plastic sheath wouldn’t have made it over the diode.)
That bare area and the sheath were clearly in there from the factory, like they were planning for people to modify it later for different voltage batteries. Has anyone else done the same job, and noticed how the red wire had been prepared?
EDIT: now that this camera’s meter is closer to accurate, this is easily my favorite camera. It feels perfect in my hand, everything g is solid and in great working condition. It just feels right. I also love that the focusing screen in micro prism only, without the split prism.
