Thanks everyone for your replies, the battery compartment looks clean and I managed to remove the rewind crank and the switch and all contacts look clean under-neath it.
Brett, when you said that you had to clean parts of the electrical system, which ones did you mean?
Regards.
OK. I've taken a look at Miranda for the first time in six months or so. I'd forgotten how solid she feels. She's a pretty gal, too. In good repair now, and the metering seems OK. Some new light seals and I can load a film, and I think I might actually have to do that, soon.
In terms of what I had to do to mine, the meter system was not completely non-functional on arrival. But it was erratic and prone to cutting on and off by itself suggesting an issue with battery and/or switch contacts. I tackled this by cleaning the parts of the electrical system accessible without a full strip down. Mainly because even though I don't generally use a cameras built in meter, I can find it annoying sometimes if I've made a camera work well but the meter is faulty. I like them to work 100% if possible even if I hardly ever use them.
I recall spending an hour or two trying to pinpoint why the meter would cut in and out. The control switch around the rewind crank was obviously a prime suspect and it didn't move crisply. Clearance between the control ring of the switch and the body on mine is not super tight. I'd not be surprised if decades of time on Earth permit ingress of dust and maybe a bit of wear may factor into its condition. Like you I removed the rewind crank and cleaned the parts. This helped somewhat but the needle would still jump around randomly and fluctuate in its reading. There was more going on. Ultimately I worked out that the interchangeable finder system was a part of the problem. Wiggling the pentaprism induced a response from the meter needle. I had to remove this and clean the components that locate and lock the finder into place.
I've confirmed this a short time ago by re-checking my own EE. Inspecting things with the pentaprism removed reveals that squeezing the left side of the housing with thumb and finger can affect the meter reading. Similarly, squeezing the cover in the vicinity of the PC socket can deflect the needle. I can only assume it's possible to slightly move the interior components enough to impact the circuit somehow. You might want to conduct some tests of the two modes with the camera on a tripod, to eliminate any chance that the way you're holding it is somehow influencing the readings you get.
Assuming that:
- The control switch contacts are clean and functional at all settings, and;
- The installed battery is of the correct size and voltage, and the contacts are clean and providing good continuity
I would be inclined, as MRohlfing has previously mentioned, to wonder if one of the CdS cells (or its wiring circuit) is sub-optimal. Which possibly brings us back to that flexible wire I mentioned originally and its condition apart from other considerations. Is the mirror clean and in good condition? With a lens off, does gently touching the flexible wire off the mirror cut the needle on/off? Etc. You're going to have to look at these sorts of things, if the general problems I had that I've mentioned above all check out OK.
Hope it works out. Handling the camera again confirms that whilst the wind action is not smooth as butter, there are a lot of things about my EE I really like (it was a cheap score ex-eBay for about AUD $20). I'd like to try it out, now.
Keep us posted.
Cheers
Brett
