Dead XA2 Revived in 15 Minutes.

[Harlee]

I picked up a rather nice XA2 for about $7.00 knowing that it was locked up. The rewind button was pushed into the bottom plate so the film advance wouldn't work nor would the shutter work - I bought it because I felt it was an easy fix, and it was. I removed the bottom plate, tripped a magnetic switch with a jeweler's screwdriver, and ola, the rewind button popped up, the film advance worked, replaced the base plate, put in two batteries and tripped the shutter. 10-15 minutes total time. This is my
4th XA2 all great working models.

 

[dfatty]

well done, and if you didnt fix it it might have eventually been trashed instead of saved.

 

[David Hughes]

I'll second that.

And it's one of the best designed cameras about and still looking good after 30 years or so.

Regards, David

 

[Rodchenko]

Always pleased to hear about cameras revived. Good job.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Good job.

Yes, definitely! 🙂

 

[farlymac]

But I wonder if you had just put batteries in it to begin with, it might have come back to life on it's own? Seeing as it was a magnetic switch that needed to be activated, a little voltage could have been all that was necessary. Glad you could get it working.

PF

 

[CosmicCharlie]

That is great you were able to breath life back into it. I love my xa2 so this is good to know if it starts to act up I know not to give up. Thank you for posting.

 

[Harlee]

Thanks guys. When I received it the green battery light came on in viewfinder but I placed different batteries in it but that didn't do a thing. Sometimes you can move the film advance reel backward by hand and that will make the rewind button pop out and you can start advancing the film advance wheel again thereby cocking the shutter. I've got some film in it to see how it's working. I appreciate your replies!

 

[Harlee]

I just purchased another non-working XA2 with a more powerful flash. It's described by not being able to wind the film, shutter won't trip, nor can the film be rewound. It sounds as though it has the same problem as the I one I just repaired. Quite frankly, I'm more impressed with the A16 flash, which I needed, which is supposedly a working model.

We'll see what happens when it arrives and I have a chance to check it out. The first thing I usually do is clean the battery chamber and battery cap with contact cleaner and a Q-Tip. I've discovered that these all electronic camera MUST have clean contacts or they just won't function properly. Then if that doesn't bring it back to life, I'll remove the bottom and top plate and see if there are any loose or broken wires or if the rewind button is still pushed in and the camera is locked out.

 

[M Currie]

There's a little part in the wind mechanism that is made of three pieces, an outer hub, a spring and a pressed-in disk with a slot in it, and under severe impact this can pop apart. It's been some time since I fixed one, but it was not hard to repair or replace (I had a spare so opted for that even though my repair seemed all right). If your XA has had a bad impact that might be worth looking at. Mine in question had been dropped, then run over by a car, a reasonable excuse for a small failure I think.

 

[Harlee]

Well my XA2 arrived in not working condition. Locked up tighter than a drum! But the A16 flash does work but the flash indicator which pops up won't stay down. The camera itself was a 5 minute repair job and now it's working just fine, but with one problem which I haven't been able to correct. With flash attached and charged, the camera will continue to shoot in the automatic mode but the flash does go off. For some reason, the camera isn't locking into it's flash mode. I tried another flash but it does the same thing.

I'll have to take the bottom plate off of a good working specimen and see what contacts close when the switch is moved over to flash, and then compare it with my latest one. Hopefully I'll figure it out! I rarely utilize the flash on the XA series, so it may not make any difference, but it would be nice to have it working properly just in case.

Oh yes, I did get the flash pop up indicator to work properly by simply fiddling with it!

 

[Harlee]

This is for Rob who wrote me with a question. Sometimes with the XA series, including XA, XA1, XA2, XA3, etc., there's a lot of electronics stuffed into those little bodies. If the camera is locked up, i.e., won't fire, won't advance the film, shutter isn't working, that's generally an easy fix.

I had one or two however, where the circuit board under the shutter button is broken in two, and the circuit is disrupted. Someone just applied to much force on the shutter button and broke the circuit board.

The XA2, XA3 series has a green light that turns on in the viewfinder when the light is to low for a fast shutter speed. If the green light isn't coming on when pointed at a dark area then there's either a broken circuit board, a loose or unsoldered wire, etc.

You might want to try this, with the bottom plate removed, take a small jeweler's screwdriver and lift a small metal arm which is held down by a very fine spring and gently lift it up and it will close a magnet, you can see the coil and even hear it when the coil closes the circuit. Don't know if that will do any good, but you may want to try it. If you can't find the little arm, let me know and I'll take a digital of it and attach it to this thread.

Good luck!