Battery drain on electro 35 gs after POD fix

[zdav]

hi,

I bought a gs about a month ago. Halfway through the first roll the battery check light started to be weak. Most of the images on that film seemed under exposed.

So, after reading about the pad of death I opened the camera and found a deteriorated pad. I replaced it. The mechanism seems to be working: when I push the release button, the second part of the release mechanism stays down, and jumps back up when I pull the advance lever (with a loud 'clunk' as described in many pad of death articles).

After my 'fix' the camera behaves differently: when I force a slow shutterspeed, the orange light briefly lights up when pushing down the release button but goes out before the button is pushed down completely. Before the fix, the light would stay on until the shutter was released.

Unfortunately, after 2 days and maybe 10 shots, the battery is dead again. I didn't advance the film after each shot as I read this activates the meter (some doubt this but I did it anyway)

I use a 6V duracel 28A battery which I rolled in a piece of thick paper, with a 2eurocent copper coin on the top and bottom of the battery. I made a spring out of a big paper clip to make up for the extra space.

What could be causing battery drain. What would be my next step into fixing this? I read about:

1. Disabling the battery check wires as sometimes there is a short circuit?
2. Cleaning contacts? which contacts ?
...

tnx,

Staf

 

[b1bmsgt]

Usually, replacing the POD will eliminate any battery drain problems. I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why you have one. Is it possible that your replacement POD was the wrong thickness? What did you use to make your replacement, and what size was it? If it is too thick or thin it would throw off the spacing of the electrical contacts.

There are two places with electrical contacts:
1- Directly beneath the POD is a sliding contact and brush assembly which are the contacts for the exposure lights. At the bottom of the brushes travel it shuts off the metering system IF the POD is the correct thickness. If the POD is too thin, they will not reach this point. If the POD is too thick it could overshoot the proper point and leave the meter active.

2- In the lens barrel are the contacts for the mode selector ring (B, Auto, Flash) and the contacts for the resistors of the aperture ring.

I don't think either of these could cause a battery drain by being dirty, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to clean them.

Hope this helps somewhat...

Russ

 

[zdav]

You might already have solved it:
For the pad I used a piece of plastic from the clip of a ballpoint cap. I must say I don't know if it's exactly 2,00000 mm thick as I measured it with a ruler. I didn't pay much attention tot the other dimensions (width and height are 4mm by 3mm I think) as I didn't see how it could affect the functioning. Also, I think the thickness of the glue might also add something to the total thickness of the pad as I used quite some glue.

I'll try to replace it again and pay more attention to the size.

Tnx

 

[b1bmsgt]

The width and height aren't terribly crucial, but the thickness, top to bottom as it sits in the camera, is. That said, plus or minus a small fraction is OK. Another full mm, probably not.

Russ