Polaroid 360 flash..

[cepwin]

I bought a polaroid 360 on line. The seller included the flash and flash charger but noted in the description it doesn't operate. I have to do a battery conversion on the camera itself but the question I have is about the flash. When I plug it in sometimes it will power up if I jiggle it and it somehow makes contact. However, usually it doesn't make contact so it can't charge the flash. Do you think it's the plug on the charger? Perhaps a short inside or dirt on the contacts? I want to see if I can actually charge up the flash. I should add it looks from his description that the charger did come on but the problem was with the flash itself..although I'm not sure..especially since the batteries in the camera were dead and corroded (again, not a big deal...I'm converting it to AAA's anyway.)

Thanks!

 

[ChristopherCoy]

Let me know how your conversion turns out.

Mine charges but takes forever to cycle... Like three minutes. And I haven't gotten it to fully charge yet. I left it on the charger for like 6 hours and the light never went off.

I was pleasantly surprised that everything worked like new, especially considering it was a goodwill find.

My biggest issue is that the pack is too tight and I ruined an entire pack of fp100c today by tearing the dark slide, and subsequently messing up the frames from torn tabs.

 

[cepwin]

Thanks Chris, you too .... I ruined two packs running them through my 210

 

[xya]

in most cases the batteries in the flash are dead or at least nearly dead. you can change the batteries, there is a nice how-to here Dead Link Removed

concerning the pack which jams: it's probably the timer. you can interchange the back doors. if you have a spare pack 100 camera without timer you can switch it quite easily. if you don't have one, you can find spare parts here http://www.landcameras.com/ I have dealt with them and I was pleased with their service.

 

[cepwin]

Thanks xya! I've also heard the problem can be caused because the new fuji pack film is in a plastic container whereas the polaroid film used metal. From what I understand this causes a problem because the metal spring/clamp on the back of the door was necessary for the metal case but pushes too hard on the more flexible plastic case.

 

[xya]

yes, I have heard about this too. sometimes bending the springs back helps. there are even some people who take off the plastic back from the fuji pack (with precaution) and replace it by an original polaroid metal back before putting the pack into the camera. I haven't tried this yet.

 

[cepwin]

I finally have what I think is a metal back...perhaps I'll try that. Actually I've heard of people removing the springs all together but I'm reluctant to do that.

 

[Joe VanCleave]

"Perhaps a short inside..."? Probably not a short circuit, more likely an open circuit, caused by intermittent connections.

Besides the suggestion of the flash tube and dry cells being aged, another common component that degrades with age are electrolytic capacitors, which are used in flash circuits to store the charge as it builds up.

~Joe

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I think I'm just going to get the Dremel out and cut the springs out!

 

[flsimages]

it is always an option to do a hotshoe on the camera and use a modern flash