Yashica Atoron Electro (Minox Type) Repair

[ic-racer]

This camera's shutter would not fire. First step was to place a working battery. Still the shutter would not fire.

After disassembly and analysis of the mechanism, it was clear the electromagnet was not capturing the shutter to hold it open.

It turns out the shutter release has a switch to keep the electromagnet energized and this switch was not making contact. I bent the contacts closer and that fixed the problem.

So, amazingly the meter circuit, including the low-light indicator (incandescent lamp!) works. Lens is clear and focus and parallax compensation work as expected. Frame counter works and resets as it should.

I suspect most people that find this thread just want to know how to open up the camera, so those pictures will come later, once I edit them.

By the way, even though this camera is the size of a Minox LX and takes Minox film, it is a totally independent design. The shutter is totally different. The shutter is actually very similar to the shutter on a Minolta 16QT. It has two blades that pivot and swing in and out of the light path.

 

[ic-racer]

Yashica Atoron Electro disassembly:

Remove the battery.

Remove the circular retainter for the flash mount. (Green arrow)

Remove the little lever that frees the film chamber (Blue arrow). This may be difficult, it is held on with a micro circular nut like pictured.

 

[ic-racer]

Unscrew and remove the tripod mount (15) and remove the shutter cocking lever (16).

 

[ic-racer]

You don't have to take the shutter cocking lever apart, but if you do want to take it apart, be careful of the little ball bearing.

 

[Andreas Thaler]

This is already on the scale of watchmaking

 

[ic-racer]

Now the camera should be able to be separated at the red line:

 

[ic-racer]

On this side there is one little screw holding the plastic front cover to the metal body of the rest of the camera. On my example, there was a little washer between the plastic front cover and the metal body.

 

[ic-racer]

On the other side of the camera there are two screws to remove. I did not find any washers on this side of the camera.

 

[ic-racer]

Now you can separate the front plastic piece from the camera body.

 

[ic-racer]

With the front plastic piece removed, I was able to clean the inside of the protective lenses covering the viewfinder, lens and exposure meter.

 

[ic-racer]

Function of the electronic shutter as seen from the front of the camera.

 

[ic-racer]

Size comparison for the Yashica. It is in between a Minox and a 16mm Minolta:

 

[tjwspm]

A very nicely illustrated guide. Thank you for the work. Opening small cameras is often difficult when you have to figure everything out yourself.

The Yashica Atoron electron is the successor to the Yahica Atoron that I own. It was my first camera in 8x11 mm negative format.

 

[ic-racer]

I have the older one too. The meter does not work, but fortunatley, it is not coupled, so I can still use it by setting the EV with a hand-held meter.

 

[MattKing]

Typo in Camera name fixed in thread title and one post - at OP's request.,

 

[tjwspm]

I have the older one too. The meter does not work, but fortunatley, it is not coupled, so I can still use it by setting the EV with a hand-held meter.

View attachment 358855

Have you ever tried opening this camera?

 

[ic-racer]

It should open just like the other, but I haven’t opened it yet.

I have had it in my camera collection for twenty years and thought it was broken, until yesterday when you mentioned it and I tested it again.

 

[ic-racer]

Have you ever tried opening this camera?

Instructions on opening the Atoron non-electro here if you have not seen it yet:

Yashica Atoron (non-Electro) Repair (Minox Type)

The non-Electro Atoron comes apart similar to the Electro version. Remove the threaded inserts at each end of the camera just like the Electro. Then remove the film chamber door release lever and film chamber door. There is a micro ring-nut. I made a special tool to remove it. The nut was also...

www.photrio.com

 

[ic-racer]

I have no way to electronically test the shutters or the meter in the Electro. So a good old fashioned film test was used. I'm pretty pleased with the results. Top two are the Electro and the bottom two are the non-Electro.

 

[tjwspm]

Interesting!
How do you develop 8x11 film? I've never done this myself before. Although I own the Minox development tank, I have never used it.

 

[ic-racer]

Interesting!
How do you develop 8x11 film? I've never done this myself before. Although I own the Minox development tank, I have never used it.

See the thread “8x11 developing reel”

 

[Andreas Thaler]

@ic-racer

Very inspiring and a motivation to leave your own specialization and open up new areas of work.

Your work on the shutter speed topic is excellent

 

[ic-racer]

This is the tool I use to unscrew the various fittings of this camera. When those little drill bits break, I still save them and use the non-cutting end. I grab two of them with a Vice Grip. This works good for one-off repairs where making a custom tool that would never be used again would be too much work.

 

[tjwspm]

Great idea!
That was indeed my problem when opening the camera. Then I managed to do it with a compass. The problem with it is that the ends spring. Luckily, the screws weren't very tight.

A challenge was the tiny brass set screw on the lever for opening the back panel. For that, I even made my own tool out of a screwdriver.

 

[ic-racer]

Yes, for that little ring-nut I was actually able to use my tool a second time on an exposure meter repair.