How Do I Adjust Electro 35 Meter ?

[ARCHIVIST]

I have a Yashica Electro 35 GTN that is under exposing by about 1 to 1 1/2 stops.

I get a feint 'crackle' sound when I depress the shutter button and the indicator lights are not working as they should. The battery is new and the battery compartment contacts are OK. When I changed out the RF assembly recently it was squeaky clean inside.

Is this a contact issue? Any assistance would be appreciated.

Regards
Peter

 

[john neal]

Peter,

Difficult / impossible to adjust the meter, but there are one or two other options - as you intimated, check that all the sliding fingers are making correct contact with the circuit board (I had one camera where one of the 4 was not). Second, check the cleanliness of the contact strip inside the lens mount - make sure that it is clean and the sliders are making contact (and that all the resisters are OK).

Other than that, the biggest influence on shutter operation is probably the electrolytic capacitor on the pcb under the asa dial. These are often odd values, and do go bad - a tantalum bead replacement at the nearest standard value often works wonders.

Of course, you could always change your asa rating, if the exposure shift is constant 😉

 

[FallisPhoto]

I have a Yashica Electro 35 GTN that is under exposing by about 1 to 1 1/2 stops.

I get a feint 'crackle' sound when I depress the shutter button and the indicator lights are not working as they should. The battery is new and the battery compartment contacts are OK. When I changed out the RF assembly recently it was squeaky clean inside.

Is this a contact issue? Any assistance would be appreciated.

Regards
Peter

Step 1: change the "pad of death." This can cause all sorts of exposure problems and other weirdnesses, and is the single most likely cause of problems in the G-series Yashicas. If the indicator lights are not working as they should, it is a strong indicator that this is the problem. http://www.yashica-guy.com/document/repair.html#nine

Step 2: Clean the battery contacts. Check the wires that attach to the battery compartment for corrosion.

Step 3: Do what John Neal said. Use circuit board cleaner and be sure to clean the contacts.

Step 4: If none of this works, or if you just don't want to be bothered, send it to Mark Hama, in Georgia. He is THE man for all things Yashica. Nice guy too. http://markhama.home.comcast.net/~markhama/index.html

Edit: I think it is almost certainly going to be the "pad of death" though.

 

[ARCHIVIST]

Thank you both.

I do my own repair work and will get right on to it this weekend.

I will get back to you via this thread and let you know how I get on.

Regards
Peter

 

[ARCHIVIST]

Problem Solved

Problem Solved

It was a contact problem.

The contacts inside the lens were cleaned and the 'white wire' at the top of the battery compartment where it is soldered to the spring was green at that point. I re-soldeerd it and now the camera has come back to life.

I have just shot a test roll and will process this tonight.

The camera 'feels' right so I am very confident the problem has been solved.

Thanks for your help in this.

Regards
Peter

 

[FallisPhoto]

It was a contact problem.

The contacts inside the lens were cleaned and the 'white wire' at the top of the battery compartment where it is soldered to the spring was green at that point. I re-soldeerd it and now the camera has come back to life.

I have just shot a test roll and will process this tonight.

The camera 'feels' right so I am very confident the problem has been solved.

Thanks for your help in this.

Regards
Peter

You're welcome and congratulations! Those are very nice cameras. I started out collecting Yashicas and have shot an awful lot of photos with them. When you want autoexposure, Yashica Gs are awfully hard to beat.