Three or so years ago I purchased a Nikon FA from Japan advertised as not going - parts or for display only. At $40 aussie dollars (about $1.50 USD soon) it was worth a shot to see if I could kick it into life. When it arrived in the post I was shocked to find it was like new in the original box and it had the protective plastic on the bottom plate and the plastic mount cover.
I tried everything to get it going as it tempted me with the light meter working but this would short out when the shutter was depressed. It fired just fine on M250 and B. Anyway it sat on the dead camera rack until just recently I read a post by shutterfinger concerning a dead FE suggesting that the owner could try freezing and thawing of that camera. Sounded like a plan so I froze the FA for 4 hours (forgot it was there!) then heated it up in the barbeque (not recommended). Then attempting to fire a few shots off with the camera half frozen on one side and medium rare on the other, I must have held it in an unusual way and quite by accident pressed in the speed dial lock button at the same time I depressed the shutter. Success - it fired and worked just fine, but only when I pressed in the speed dial lock button. However I noticed that as I depressed the shutter the LED light meter would go blank just before firing and then come on again after firing. If I didn't complete the action the light meter would not reappear unless I turned the speed dial to M250 and back again to any speed. This was the case in any setting of P,S,A or M. So I wondered if the camera would fire at the correct light meter reading speed whilst the LED was blank and I found that it did. My test was to point the camera at the sky and the meter registered 1/2000th, depress the shutter till the LED went blank just before firing, release the shutter and face the camera into a dark corner where I knew the setting was 1/4th and sure enough it fired at 1/4th. So I was confident the camera was still reading the correct metering with a blank LED.
But no fun having a camera where I would have to depress the speed dial lock every time I fired a shot, so I ripped the head off to see what was happening under the bonnet. At this point refer to the attached photos. What I found is that the speed dial button pushes a mechanical arm "A" which then pushes a sprung arm "B" away from under the shutter so allowing it to be pressed down further to fire off the shot. Sprung arm B also locks the Speed dial in position M250 or B so to move it to another speed setting pressing in Arm A pushes out Arm B releasing the Speed dial for turning. This all seems to be a lot of trouble just to stop the user from turning the Speed dial out of the M250 setting. What I also found is that with no batteries in the camera it will fire manually at 1/250th on any Speed dial setting provided the Speed dial lock button is pushed in. Okay so did the engineers design Arm B to prevent the user from firing off lots of 1/250th manual shots if the batteries died? I couldn't see another reason for this Arm B. So what pushes Arm B out of the way to enable the full depression of the shutter? I can only guess that there is an electronic solenoid under the Speed dial that pushes Arm B away from under the shutter when the camera is turned on by flipping out the film winding arm. So here is the problem with this FA. Arm B does not get pushed out when the camera is turned on. It all looks a bit tricky to dive into pulling off the Speed dial as I have a healthy fear of ribbon cables and their connections.
So a quick fix to this issue is to bend out the connecting lever on Arm A so that Arm B is permanently kept clear of locking both the shutter and the Speed dial. With the camera back together it is working just fine except for the LED issue. That is not so bad now as the Speed dial is no longer locked so it can be left on 1 sec (for P or A) and if I press the shutter but abort the shot and the LED is blanked out I just turn the Speed dial to M250 and back to 1 sec and the meter lights up again. I can hear a click when the LED goes out so anyone have an idea on this? I suspect it is the dead solenoid that is meant to push Arm B out from under the Speed dial causing the issue. Another hint to this problem is this camera will not work attached to a MD15 motor drive. Oh well it is a fairly good outcome from a dead camera that was given it's last rights in the morgue freezer before a cremation in the BBQ. Thanks shutterfinger - it proved to be a big success.
I tried everything to get it going as it tempted me with the light meter working but this would short out when the shutter was depressed. It fired just fine on M250 and B. Anyway it sat on the dead camera rack until just recently I read a post by shutterfinger concerning a dead FE suggesting that the owner could try freezing and thawing of that camera. Sounded like a plan so I froze the FA for 4 hours (forgot it was there!) then heated it up in the barbeque (not recommended). Then attempting to fire a few shots off with the camera half frozen on one side and medium rare on the other, I must have held it in an unusual way and quite by accident pressed in the speed dial lock button at the same time I depressed the shutter. Success - it fired and worked just fine, but only when I pressed in the speed dial lock button. However I noticed that as I depressed the shutter the LED light meter would go blank just before firing and then come on again after firing. If I didn't complete the action the light meter would not reappear unless I turned the speed dial to M250 and back again to any speed. This was the case in any setting of P,S,A or M. So I wondered if the camera would fire at the correct light meter reading speed whilst the LED was blank and I found that it did. My test was to point the camera at the sky and the meter registered 1/2000th, depress the shutter till the LED went blank just before firing, release the shutter and face the camera into a dark corner where I knew the setting was 1/4th and sure enough it fired at 1/4th. So I was confident the camera was still reading the correct metering with a blank LED.
But no fun having a camera where I would have to depress the speed dial lock every time I fired a shot, so I ripped the head off to see what was happening under the bonnet. At this point refer to the attached photos. What I found is that the speed dial button pushes a mechanical arm "A" which then pushes a sprung arm "B" away from under the shutter so allowing it to be pressed down further to fire off the shot. Sprung arm B also locks the Speed dial in position M250 or B so to move it to another speed setting pressing in Arm A pushes out Arm B releasing the Speed dial for turning. This all seems to be a lot of trouble just to stop the user from turning the Speed dial out of the M250 setting. What I also found is that with no batteries in the camera it will fire manually at 1/250th on any Speed dial setting provided the Speed dial lock button is pushed in. Okay so did the engineers design Arm B to prevent the user from firing off lots of 1/250th manual shots if the batteries died? I couldn't see another reason for this Arm B. So what pushes Arm B out of the way to enable the full depression of the shutter? I can only guess that there is an electronic solenoid under the Speed dial that pushes Arm B away from under the shutter when the camera is turned on by flipping out the film winding arm. So here is the problem with this FA. Arm B does not get pushed out when the camera is turned on. It all looks a bit tricky to dive into pulling off the Speed dial as I have a healthy fear of ribbon cables and their connections.
So a quick fix to this issue is to bend out the connecting lever on Arm A so that Arm B is permanently kept clear of locking both the shutter and the Speed dial. With the camera back together it is working just fine except for the LED issue. That is not so bad now as the Speed dial is no longer locked so it can be left on 1 sec (for P or A) and if I press the shutter but abort the shot and the LED is blanked out I just turn the Speed dial to M250 and back to 1 sec and the meter lights up again. I can hear a click when the LED goes out so anyone have an idea on this? I suspect it is the dead solenoid that is meant to push Arm B out from under the Speed dial causing the issue. Another hint to this problem is this camera will not work attached to a MD15 motor drive. Oh well it is a fairly good outcome from a dead camera that was given it's last rights in the morgue freezer before a cremation in the BBQ. Thanks shutterfinger - it proved to be a big success.
