The wink of a Minox - How the Minox shutter works

When a Minox winks, it takes a picture. But when I bought the first Minox A with defective shutter blades, I had to know more…

This Minox A was a flawless beauty, but you could tell from the outside that something was wrong with it. Through the glass window in front of the lens I could see that the shutter blades were destroyed. The camera could not be cocked and certainly not triggered. It was a disgrace.

On the other hand, I had bought it cheaply and so I had the courage to repair it. It became a very long road. But I wanted to know and so I created a documentation of how the mechanical shutter of an 8×11 Minox actually works.

I took notes and lots of pictures. And as is often the case in life, if you delve deeply enough into a topic, it becomes more and more fascinating. So here it is for anyone who also wants to know how the Minox shutter works:

If there is anything wrong in my description, please give me feedback.

Please note that this is not an actual repair procedure. Rather, it is intended to describe how the shutter works. It is also aimed at those of you who do not want to repair but are interested in Minox technology. However, repair instructions for shutter blades will follow.

I enjoyed the read very much, excellent stuff.

Thank you!

Thank you for your feedback!

I am also impressed, well-founded and in-depth from A to Z. Also very nicely presented.

Congratulations

Nice work!

Thank you both for the feedback. I appreciate it as I have read many of your posts.

I don’t have time available for making repairs, but as a Monoxer I found this to be a fascinating read. Walter Zapp was surely a creative genius to conceive this mechanism. Thank you for the labor and thought put into preparing this presentation.

A fine presentation. Thanks from a Minox B owner!

Thank you for feedback!

Update:
I have revised my article and corrected the sequence in which the camera shutter operates:

While writing my new article about the Minox escapement, I discovered that the shutter working method described so far in the relevant Minox publications - including mine - is not entirely correct. I noticed this after making a slow motion video of the Minox's inner workings.
When my article about the escapement is finished, I will mention it in this forum.