Reliability of electronics in 35mm SLRs

[fstop]

Will the electronics of 20-30+ year old cameras be able to withstand normal usage?

Yes, provided the camera is properly stored and keep dry during and in between use. Humidity/salt air, hot car interiors do have a negative effect on electronics.
I have cameras that have been in continuous use for over 20 years with no issues.


"I don't believe the 10 year requirement is correct"

its not, its 7 years for certain high ticket items like cars.

 

[albada]

I've owned several Minolta X-series, and all had electronics problems.
For Olympus, both OM-Gs had problems, and a couple of OM-PCs did as well. But multiple OM-10s were fine.
By now, I regard old electronics as very risky, and so I stay with all-mechanical cameras such as the OM-1.

And a suggestion from the author-guidelines of a professional journal: Don't say "issue" when you mean "problem".

Mark Overton

 

[nsurit]

As an OM system user, I currently own at least 1 of all the single digit OM bodies. My "go to" camera is the OM 2S and it is the most unreliable of the single digit bodies. The circuit boards die and replacements are not available. So if you like that camera, you may need to get a spare or two. The mechanical bodies (the ones which will continue to function when the battery has died) are the OM 1 and OM 3. Obviously, the meters won't work, however everything else will. There are several good meter apps for the cell phone you probably have in your pocket. If you still use two tin cans and a string, you will be stuck with sunny 16. Bill Barber

 

[fstop]

As an OM system user, I currently own at least 1 of all the single digit OM bodies. My "go to" camera is the OM 2S and it is the most unreliable of the single digit bodies. The circuit boards die and replacements are not available. So if you like that camera, you may need to get a spare or two. The mechanical bodies (the ones which will continue to function when the battery has died) are the OM 1 and OM 3. Obviously, the meters won't work, however everything else will. There are several good meter apps for the cell phone you probably have in your pocket. If you still use two tin cans and a string, you will be stuck with sunny 16. Bill Barber

I always thought that green bean cans had better clarity than corn cans.

 

[Jim Jones]

Vintage electronics have a reputation for failure that doesn't apply directly to cameras.

The vast majority of vintage failures are of a particular part, an "aluminum electrolytic".
That type of capacitor does have a high failure rate, getting worse as they age.
I routinely work on radios from the decades before World War II.
In those I change the electrolytics without even testing them, since I know they're bad.

But those parts are not commonly used in cameras due to their large size.
Smaller capacitors of other technologies are used. They tend to be much more reliable.

Any component can fail, but the reliability of cameras from the 70s and 80s is quite good.

- Leigh

My experience dating from the 1940s is similar to Leigh's. Other likely sources of problems are any moving electrical contact between components like battery contacts, lens mounts, and adjustable resistors.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I have found that the camera electronics are reliable. Once they need to be repaired, the repairs were easy to get done. Then the replacement boards were no longer available. The result is that now if an electronic camera needs a repair just replace it.

 

[Chan Tran]

The OM4 in particular may have problems as others said. I don't have one so I don't know. I think the mechanical components wear out too in 30 years. More so than the electronics.

 

[Wallendo]

My rule of thumb is to stick with primarily manual cameras (battery meters are acceptable) or relatively recent electronic cameras.
A number of the early electronic cameras had primitive focusing and exposure algorithms. Many of these are unusable if the electronics are not intact.

 

[Nodda Duma]

The recent move to tin solder for emvironmental reasons means eventually new electronics will fail due to "tin whiskers".

Not to add to APUG'ers paranoia about electronics or anything..

 

[Huss]

The recent move to tin solder for emvironmental reasons means eventually new electronics will fail due to "tin whiskers".

Not to add to APUG'ers paranoia about electronics or anything..

This is actually why Fuji stopped making the Xpan series cameras. Because they did not want to deal with switching to tin solder and meeting the new environmental standards with it. On the upside this means that these cameras should be very reliable on a long term basis.

 

[Ap507b]

The oy electronic bits I have had fail on me are LCD displays. One in my F4 finder & the other in my F5 finder. Every Minolta 9000 I have seen for sale has had a leaking LCD as well.

 

[Leigh B]

The recent move to tin solder for emvironmental reasons means eventually new electronics will fail due to "tin whiskers".

? ? ?
Tin has always been used in electronic solders. That continues to the present day.

The change in this century was to eliminate lead from the solder alloy.
It's been replaced by combinations of other elements, commonly silver + copper.
This is called "lead-free solder".

- Leigh

 

[AgX]

The recent move to tin solder for emvironmental reasons means eventually new electronics will fail due to "tin whiskers".

The preceeding solders were tin solders too, but their tin content was 2/3 of the current. It is not the tin content as such but the whole composition that counts.

 

[Nodda Duma]

The preceeding solders were tin solders too, but their tin content was 2/3 of the current. It is not the tin content as such but the whole composition that counts.

All I can say is "yes, I know".

 

[Nodda Duma]

? ? ?
Tin has always been used in electronic solders. That continues to the present day.

The change in this century was to eliminate lead from the solder alloy.
It's been replaced by combinations of other elements, commonly silver + copper.
This is called "lead-free solder".

- Leigh

Sometimes I feel like pounding my head against the wall for a forum's ability to nit-pick.

Lead-free solder is also sometimes referred to as tin solder, as in "all-tin solder"...obviously more often by the EE's I work with than by the EE's you work with.

 

[Leigh B]

Lead-free solder is also sometimes referred to as tin solder, as in "all-tin solder"...obviously more often by the EE's I work with than by the EE's you work with.

Lead-free solder and pure tin solder are two very different products with different uses.

Lead-free solder is used in modern electronic assembly in most of the world.
It's a recent development (since the lead-free EU directive in 2006).

Pure tin (99.99% tin) solder has been used for years in plumbing for the food-processing industry.
This was done because of the desire to keep lead out of the food.
It's not desirable in electronics because its melting point is 100 deg F higher than electronic solders.

- Leigh

 

[Truzi]

Many years ago I was putting a new pickup in my electric guitar and asked my dad if he had any solder. He gave me some, and I had one hell of a time with it. Later I learned it was plumbing solder with antimony, lol.

 

[EdColorado]

...But I'm used to it and I carry spares. I've carried the OM-4 on many backpacking trips, where I've carried three or four spare pairs of batteries... and I've only ever have had to replace batteries "twice" on a single trip. Never had to replace them three times.

Wow, I guess the battery drain issue is different with different bodies. This last Christmas I decided to take my OM4 on a trip to my mothers place and upon getting back home I decided to do a little test. I had always worried about batteries dying and always carried at least one spare set. When coming home I always removed the batteries and left them on the shelf next to the camera, so I really didn't know how quickly they would drain. And yes, the test shows my OM4 has the older circuitry.

My test then was to just leave the batteries in the camera and see how long it took for them to need replacing. I was figuring a week or two but in the end it was about 5 weeks before a battery check showed that I should probably replace them. Not great shelf life, but not so short as to make me worry when out with the camera. I do of course still remove the batteries when I put the camera away, but I wont worry about it so much at the end of the day when I'm on the road.

 

[Bill Burk]

Wow, I guess the battery drain issue is different with different bodies. This last Christmas I decided to take my OM4 on a trip to my mothers place and upon getting back home I decided to do a little test. I had always worried about batteries dying and always carried at least one spare set. When coming home I always removed the batteries and left them on the shelf next to the camera, so I really didn't know how quickly they would drain. And yes, the test shows my OM4 has the older circuitry.

My test then was to just leave the batteries in the camera and see how long it took for them to need replacing. I was figuring a week or two but in the end it was about 5 weeks before a battery check showed that I should probably replace them. Not great shelf life, but not so short as to make me worry when out with the camera. I do of course still remove the batteries when I put the camera away, but I wont worry about it so much at the end of the day when I'm on the road.

I can easily go 5 weeks without using a particular camera, so your test sounds about right... I switched to the OM-4 coming from a Spotmatic-II which could run for multiple years on a single cell. I typically pull batteries out when I am not actively using a camera... maybe I should follow your lead and take out batteries no matter what when the camera goes back on the shelf.

When I go backpacking, some nights dip below freezing... the following mornings always require new batteries, it's not the circuit that kills batteries once I start out on an adventure. But the self-timer always seems to kill them off.

 

[chrisaisenbrey]

Lead-free solder is used in modern electronic assembly in most of the world.
It's a recent development (since the lead-free EU directive in 2006).

Somewhere I’ve read that the film back for the Hasselblad H system is not available in the EU because of the lead in the soldering.

 

[AgX]

Such back does not fall under that EU guideline.

 

[Leigh B]

Somewhere I’ve read that the film back for the Hasselblad H system is not available in the EU because of the lead in the soldering.

The EU lead-free directive is not retroactive.

If it were, they'd have to scrap all products manufactured before 2006.

- Leigh

 

[Helios 1984]

Did anyone had issues with auto-rewind on electronic cameras?

 

[Paul Howell]

I have not, includes many Minoltas, Pentax, and Konica, seems odd that I haven't.