Mr_Flibble
In Tabulas Argenteas Refero
Recently traded one of my World War 2 period Military Kodak 35 cameras for another "Luftwaffen-Eigentum" Robot II camera with 7,5cm Tele-Xenar.
It originally came in a lot with two Robot cameras that a buddy of mine bought a while back. Both were not working.
My first plan was to send it to Robot Kamera Dienst in Dusseldorf, as I did with my first Robot camera. But it seems they're no longer in business.
Nothing to it but to see what was wrong and try to fix it myself.
Luckily it was not the blade springs in the spring motor. There was definitely tension building when I wound it. But the mechanism wasn't catching so the spring would unwind as soon as I let go of the winder.
Unscrewing the cover of the motor housing I spotted the problem right away. The pawl and ratchet gear were worn down so far that the pawl wasn't catching at all.
Example of what it should look like from micklem.com robot camera page:
Asking around for parts yielded little results beyond: "buy another one for parts". Which was a bit of a disappointment.
Studying the worn-down parts some more I decided that it might be worth trying to restore them to working condition with a dremel tool. So I used a small grinding bit to give the pawl back it's tooth and deepening the gaps between the teeth of the ratchet gear to give the pawl a chance to catch them.
Trying the motor I discovered that the ratchet was working flawlessly again. Yay! 😀
Unfortunately when I was reassembling the camera I discovered I had misplaced the frame counter reset button...and I had vacuumed the room. :bang:
But using a strong rare-earth magnet I was able to pick the minute part out of the vacuum cleaner bag. That was lucky Pfew!
All that I needed now to complete this camera was a T-cassette to feed it. A quick search on Ebay Germany yielded one in fair condition and not overly expensive.
So now I've got a working Robot II camera sitting on my desk here, loaded with some Fomapan 100.
I fear this has made me somewhat overconfident in my camera repair abilities. And of course my friend wants me to fix his remaining Robot as well now. 🙄
It originally came in a lot with two Robot cameras that a buddy of mine bought a while back. Both were not working.
My first plan was to send it to Robot Kamera Dienst in Dusseldorf, as I did with my first Robot camera. But it seems they're no longer in business.
Nothing to it but to see what was wrong and try to fix it myself.
Luckily it was not the blade springs in the spring motor. There was definitely tension building when I wound it. But the mechanism wasn't catching so the spring would unwind as soon as I let go of the winder.
Unscrewing the cover of the motor housing I spotted the problem right away. The pawl and ratchet gear were worn down so far that the pawl wasn't catching at all.
Example of what it should look like from micklem.com robot camera page:
Asking around for parts yielded little results beyond: "buy another one for parts". Which was a bit of a disappointment.
Studying the worn-down parts some more I decided that it might be worth trying to restore them to working condition with a dremel tool. So I used a small grinding bit to give the pawl back it's tooth and deepening the gaps between the teeth of the ratchet gear to give the pawl a chance to catch them.
Trying the motor I discovered that the ratchet was working flawlessly again. Yay! 😀
Unfortunately when I was reassembling the camera I discovered I had misplaced the frame counter reset button...and I had vacuumed the room. :bang:
But using a strong rare-earth magnet I was able to pick the minute part out of the vacuum cleaner bag. That was lucky Pfew!
All that I needed now to complete this camera was a T-cassette to feed it. A quick search on Ebay Germany yielded one in fair condition and not overly expensive.
So now I've got a working Robot II camera sitting on my desk here, loaded with some Fomapan 100.
I fear this has made me somewhat overconfident in my camera repair abilities. And of course my friend wants me to fix his remaining Robot as well now. 🙄
