Will the electronics of 20-30+ year old cameras be able to withstand normal usage?
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
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.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
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..
? ? ?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.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.
? ? ?
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
Lead-free solder and pure tin solder are two very different products with different uses.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.
...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.
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).
The EU lead-free directive is not retroactive.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.
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