Post by belgiumreporter on Apr 29, 2020 13:41:28 GMT -5
I've had these RTS 1's for over a long time, one worked fine the other was jammed solid with the mirror stuck in the upright position. Now with some time to spare i thought to have a look at them and see if the one that was working didn't decide to die on me to. This wasn't the case, after i put in the battery it sprung to life and did everything it was supposed to do.
The other RTS refused to unlock even with the fresh battery, so i decided to take a closer look to try to determine just how far it was gone... The metering did work so that part of the electronics seemed to be fine, but no matter what i did, the mirror wouldn't stay down and film transport was jammed rock solid. At that point i thought, since these RTS cameras aren't worth that much, to open it up to have a look at the insides of the camera in the hope i could see anything that was broken (i once had a quarts 139 in wich one of the levers of the transport mechanism was broken after wich i scrapped that camera). So i removed the base plate to start my examination from there. Apparantly nothing was broken but once more it became clear that none of the gears was moving even the slightest bit even when i applied a bit of force. I then started to look for parts that could be moved and found two small spring operated levers wich could be armed, i then connected the battery then when pushing the the exposure button they moved back in their original position. Apart from that nothing else happened, but i kept on trying untill all of the sudden i heard the mirror slap. With all the gears for no apparant reason now unblocked it was possible top trip the shutter and arm the camera again. I never thought it would be that simple and that the RTS somewhere in an exposure cycle could become so blocked that it felt like the gears where welded togheter. Anyway, i've put the base plate back on and the camera has been working ever since. I am glad that i was able (with no knowledge on my side) to fix what was basically a worthless contax RTS to one wich at least is working back again. The next thing i will be looking in to is the problem of the leather separating from the body, should i try to glue it back on or should i recover it with some nice lizzard skin, we'll see...
The happy family, back togheter and fully functional :-)
The other RTS refused to unlock even with the fresh battery, so i decided to take a closer look to try to determine just how far it was gone... The metering did work so that part of the electronics seemed to be fine, but no matter what i did, the mirror wouldn't stay down and film transport was jammed rock solid. At that point i thought, since these RTS cameras aren't worth that much, to open it up to have a look at the insides of the camera in the hope i could see anything that was broken (i once had a quarts 139 in wich one of the levers of the transport mechanism was broken after wich i scrapped that camera). So i removed the base plate to start my examination from there. Apparantly nothing was broken but once more it became clear that none of the gears was moving even the slightest bit even when i applied a bit of force. I then started to look for parts that could be moved and found two small spring operated levers wich could be armed, i then connected the battery then when pushing the the exposure button they moved back in their original position. Apart from that nothing else happened, but i kept on trying untill all of the sudden i heard the mirror slap. With all the gears for no apparant reason now unblocked it was possible top trip the shutter and arm the camera again. I never thought it would be that simple and that the RTS somewhere in an exposure cycle could become so blocked that it felt like the gears where welded togheter. Anyway, i've put the base plate back on and the camera has been working ever since. I am glad that i was able (with no knowledge on my side) to fix what was basically a worthless contax RTS to one wich at least is working back again. The next thing i will be looking in to is the problem of the leather separating from the body, should i try to glue it back on or should i recover it with some nice lizzard skin, we'll see...
The happy family, back togheter and fully functional :-)