For a camera? A gear? That will work just fine? No, you can't.
A gear or special cam can be made by someone with a hunk of brass and a file..
I personally would prefer an electromagnetic leaf shutter like in the Hasselblad HC lenses over a fully mechanical one any time. As much as i like mechanical engineering and clock/watchmaking, but dependability-wise i think the less small moving parts the better.
For a camera? A gear? That will work just fine? No, you can't.
I am in the fortune position to own dozens of cameras. Many are mechanical ,some are electronic, some only a few years old, Some are many decades old(my oldest will be 100 next year), some frequently used, others I've been sitting on the shelf for years.
I made a few interesting observations I like to share. Keep in mind that YMMV.
1. Electronic cameras are not less reliable than mechanical cameras. This is especially true for shelf queens.
2. Reliability as little to do with a country of manufacture.
3. es, mechanical cameras can be serviced for a long time but it seems they also need to be serviced more frequently.
What is your experience?
You aren't familiar with watchmakers, then. You need some more specialized tools to do it - more than just a file, that is - but all these things used to be made by skilled people. There are still people who can do it.
YBut it gets difficult if we are talking about complicated metal parts and shapes. (...)
Many of those high precision mass produced parts in shutters and other mechanisms were made with specialized tools (dies etc). Those tools often have been made on extremely precise and accurate jig borers and jig mills. I am pretty sure that everytime one sees
a set of precisely positioned holes in some part, the jig was made on such a specialized machine.
Today the precision can often be attained with more regular CNC machinery, but the problem of establishing the design spec (dimensions and tolerances) stays the same..
I like both, fully mechanical devices and electronic ones (as long as the electronics are of very high quality). Both have its charms. But sometimes i would rather have more of its functionality implemented as wear resistant electronics.
But as i have repaired a lot of equipment in my life, i somehow always have a kind of low-key anxiety that the thing i use will break. Every time i press the release button on my Hasselblad i have this thoughtThe curse of the repairman.
I indicated you need a lathe and other tools... And I also remarked that even then it's possible that the piece will not have the required hardness (i.e. for advance gears) or precision (i.e. for 2nd curtain cam).
Maybe one should discern between reliability and longevity.
During the projected life span of a camera (lets say 10years) i think the electronic ones will be the winner. There is often not that much intricate mechanical stuff that can go wrong. Of course, there are motors, gears, levers etc but the sequence and timing is largely
controlled by microcontroller and not by small moving parts that slow down when lubricant gets old/cold like in an leaf shutter. Also they sometimes use better materials because they are newer. I would bet that the latest leaf shutter blades are far more durable than the ones from the
60s.
But when long term maintenance/preservation comes into play, the mechanical ones could be easier to handle.
A lot of electronic faults can be repaired easily, even if the exact same spare part is not available, one can use functional equivalents. (Diodes, Transistors, plain contact problems, cracked solder joints etc). But it takes specialists to find those faults, the layman usually
wreaks more havoc during repair attempts in electronics than the fault itself
The real showstopper are custom programmed or custom made ICs which are unobtainium
and it would require a sometimes prohibitively huge amount of reverse engineering to duplicate the functionality.
I would feel confident for example to design a replacement PCB board for a Hasselblad 203FE which largely emulates the original behavior. There is not that much stuff involved. Basically light metering, a bit of display controlling (that would most reverse engineering),
some buttons and communication with the lenses (also reverse engineering with a functioning body/lens) and state machine programming. The shutter itself is just 2 small solenoids for curtain 1 and 2 as far as i can tell.
BUT: Nikon F6 replacement electronics? I would never even try that. Far too much peripherals (AF/exposure) to talk with, when some of those are damaged it cannot even be attempted.
There is some technology level up to which one can fully understand all the interrelations between the components.
Mechanical "unreliabilty" very often stems from neglect, lack of service, old lubricants, dirt etc. When a camera is 50 years old, it seems that it has to be stripped down far more to clean out each and everything than normally done by service technicians.
Nice example: Everyone knows about the mirror dampening foam strip against which the mirror slaps. But e.g. in Hasselblads (at least without the GMS) there are 3 foam cushions beneath the mirror. If they deteriorate after some decades, the mirror wont be held properly in place anymore and
random focusing issues arise. So after a long camera life, it starts to be more of an restoration than just service/repair.
Dirt and old grease is a good lapping compound, often to be seen in old pendulum clocks that never got serviced. Some day, they stop. People increase the weight and they run again. Then they stop completely and they go to the clockmaker and say: The clock stopped working, but there
cannot be that much wrong, it worked flawlessly for 60 years! End of the story: Pivots are worn out, bearings are worn out and often worked out to some oblong shape, gear teeth are worn... Totally trashed and it needs a lot of work to get it back to life.
If the clock would have been at the clockmakers for servicing every 5-10 years, the wear would be far less and it could continue its service life for a long time.
Same with cameras.
The good thing with purely mechanical cameras is that they usually consist of only metal and that should be very stable in the long term but they have to be properly CLAd more regularly.
What i hate most about modern cameras is that stupid rubber material that gets sticky and deteriorates. I'd rather have plain metal, even if its not that comfortable.
Regarding 3D Print: Proper machine tools are alien to many people and then 3D printing is brought into the field as solution because its a new trendy technique that is accessible to a broad audience. But they overlook the fact that many camera parts have extremely tight
tolerances and surface roughness to meet and i doubt that it could be achieved by 3D printing even in the mid-term and with professional machines. If someone has more information about what is possible regarding finish and tolerances today, i would appreciate it.
A lot of stuff could be printed even now, for sure. (Cranks, knobs, battery doors, maybe even sprocket wheels) but i just dont see it for those precision machined parts that have to be made to watchmakers tolerances or that need bearing surfaces (need to be reamed).
Also the material has to be suitable for printing.
What also worries me are springs, but even for those there would be solutions to make them. But it needs specialist knowledge and equipment at a company specializing on springs.
@RalphLambrecht: Regarding point 2: I have a Pentax Spotmatic F that sat in the cupboard for nearly 20 years without being used. After that i got it in 2007 and used it for several years. Up to this day, there are no hiccups, the times are spot on, the diaphragm moves quick.
So the japanese seem to know how to lubricate (or rather NOT lubricate, as i suspect that they are using material pairings that dont need it) a camera while european cameras cause far more trouble. One would think that european cameras should be also that reliable, but
if a Hasselblad sits unused for that long, it needs a full overhaul for sure.
The point is, replacement parts can be made. Or was it actually impossible to originally make the parts found in an 80-year-old camera? Were the prototypes of those all made using stock parts - leftover bits from sewing machines? I guess they could have just used their CNC....
That is right. Everything that has been made in the first place, obviously can be made again.
But from the practical point of view, it depends heavily on the effort and cost. Even for making the 80 year old shutter, they had a lot of custom made tools. Of course, prototyping sometimes involves different approaches but don't forget: They at least had the technical drawings for the
parts they made, even if they filed them from stock material.
And they had company budget, so they could employ tool and die-makers and even make the tooling during prototyping, because those designers knew what they did and they for sure did not need to try out each and every part beforehand. Sometimes, parts and assemblies turn out just right
in the first try. I cannot imagine that e.g. Compur worried that much about some tools that had to be scrapped because a modified revision of the part was needed. The production volumes were high, labor costs were low and so they were able to bring those complicated mechanisms to market.
I bet that if i would get quotes for the initial costs of tooling, prototyping etc for something like a Copal 1 shutter, the project would be dead before it started.
Complex products can only be developed if there is a large enough market for them. Or they can be continued to be produced because the machines and tooling are long paid for.
But starting again in a totally different economic environment with a product that basically comes from a bygone technological era is very difficult. At least when not done by a company with a large enough budget.
Thats why i think that the hybrid approach is one that is suitable for todays demands. Reduce the labor intensive mechanics as much as possible and implement the rest of the functionality in electronics that can be produced to high quality without any hassle.
Circuit boards can even be soldered by hand if there are no component packages like ball grid arrays. So if one wants to try making some custom replacement electronics, it can be done with almost zero initial cost. Just parts + bare PCB board.
It would not surprise me if the the sequencing mechanism in an typical medium format body, which took the Hasselblad engineers months or even years of brain racking to develop, can be programmed within a few days when using the electromechanical approach.
I absolutely love pure mechanics, they can be of an aesthetic quality that cannot be matched by any electronics, but they can be an absolute nightmare to develop and manufacture in our time.
Regarding aesthetic mechanics:
More on topic. While electronic bodies are reliable I have 5 Nikon EL and FE bodies and 3 are not working. 1 of them wasn't working when I got it but they can't be really repaired easily. Parts required most of the time can't be fabricated or found anymore.
Have few of 2000 series bodies and it's common that older ones have malfunctioning electronics. Newer ones were more reliable but it could be just age.
Some of Nikon F80's have battery drain or broken back door latch.
Have bunch of broken Canon EF bodies.
On the other hand all mechanical Nikons, Leicas, Hasselblads were repairable.
Hasselblads are very repairable according to my experience. They have been manufactured until 2013 and spares are often available.
My local service technician officially got the whole spare part stock and all the jigs from the austrian Hasselblad distributor in Vienna.
He even had all the needed parts for my CF lenses Prontor shutter. (Escapement, leaf actuating ring etc)
He said that he has done certain tasks on the 200 series but they are a completely different beast than the 500 and they are probably best cared for in Sweden.
I see it as a privilege to have a skilled technician in my city.
And he is relatively young, compared to many others who are retiring.
That is why I have Hasselblad V Series and not the 200 or 2000 series.
I have both but like 200 and 2000 series better. There isn't much point in having them unless you have F or FE lenses for them.
Those that I got working are still working fine. 2000 series with W suffix and 200 series have newer electronics and are less likely to fail.
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