Contax T3 spool - 2 versus 1 pin

[Matus]

Hello,

here and then I keep looking a Contax T3 - a nice little camera. However I have read that the most of the model were produced with just 1 pick up pin in the spool and only the last were produced with 2. There have been reports that the spool with only 1 pin may sometimes fail to "catch" the film properly.

My question is - what is your experience?

How expensive is to change the pick-up spool? Must this be done by a service man?

Could anybody post a pic how do these spools look like?

 

[micromoogman]

The spools are made of plastic and look like on any other camera. There's one or two protruding tooth/teeth that should hook up the film. I have had at least four T3's and just one late with two teeth. All of them have been working fine. As they are of plastic I guess they wear off with time. I haven't even noticed the wear on the examples I have had. But when they do the straight 90 degree tooth has become flatter and loses the grip off the film. However I know a guy that had problems with his. He just took a piece of tape and fastened the film to the spool, but just slightly. Another simple fix would be to filing the tooth to get a more profile. It's no big deal.

 

[Vobluda]

Yes, the one tooth spool is tend to brake.
It is expensive to replace the spool as the rewind motor is inside the spool so when replacing the spool you also get the new motor (204 EUR couple of years ago at Tritec GMBH Germany).

 

[micromoogman]

they don't break off, they wear off...

 

[Zugzwang]

My T3 had only one tooth and it recently broke or wore off. My solution was to mold a tiny bit of EPoxy putty to form a tooth. Workes great so far and have a lifetime of sprocket teeth if need be for $10 or so. I may mold a second tooth on eventually but want to see how this one tooth holds up.

 

[kdemas]

Try to make sure there is no "slack" in the loaded film, that can help bring on the problem. Had T3s for many years and never had an issue.

1 tooth versions can be converted, for a price, if need be.

 

[Avotius]

A friend of mine recently got a T3 and the spool would not take up the film at all so what he did was take a tiny little screw like from a watch and screwed it into the worn tooth after carefully making a very tiny hole for it to fit into and it worked perfectly.