My new toy, rescued from the bargain bin

[AzzA]

haha Dfin, it definately would of been interested if you did come to the last market. Do you know of any other camera markets/fairs in Sydney? I cant find any.
I'm going to order one of those adapters now, it should prove a better power source than my temporary solution.
machineboy, did your shutter stay open too? II'm going to replace the POD anyway, hopefully it fixes one more problem in my list.
I'm thinking i might need to take the lens barrel apart to see why the exposure control lring doesnt move. Hopefully its just stuck with some dirt etc..

 

[Dfin]

AzzA, afraid not, but there is one coming up in canberra. A good source is "Photographic Trader" which every couple of months, one is due out soon. The Yashica Guy also has good info on repairs, best of luck.

 

[Clark.EE]

GTN we love you

GTN we love you

My first tinker was with a GTN, Corroded battery, i mean corroded. solid in the battery slot. By the time i got it out all the wiring was knackered. So went on the web, stripped down, and now i have a mintish GTN. No battery check, not a problem to me. It is in such good condition that it must be the first battery that went in the camera that leaked. Shot some film of the hoar frost with it only this morning.
Sounds like it needs a a bit of a clean with some ronson.
I have one with similar problem. Just not got round to it yet, and it is, i hate to use
the word..... MINT. Still in box with receipt etc.
I also picked up wreck GTN just in case to swap shutter ass.

 

[PhotoJim]

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

This post looked interesting. I read it. I looked at the pictures of your camera. I went... nice camera. I wonder how cheaply I could find one.

I looked at a famous online auction site. I found one that looked good, with a high-feedback seller with a near 100% positive rating (and by high I don't mean 93.8% 🙂 ), and I put a lame duck bid on it. Nobody would let me have the camera for that bid, I reasoned.

Well, to make a long story slightly shorter than it could be, the camera is now on its way to me.

I already have 23 cameras. Well, 24 actually if I count this old Kodak folder that I just inherited a few weeks ago. So now that's 25 really.

And it's all your fault.

Next thing you know, I'll be buying 400 feet of Kodak Double-X to try in ... oh wait. I already arranged that. I've been had again!

Jim

 

[Keith]

The Electros are very nice to handle with a half case on them ... mine came with an ever ready case and I use the bottom half to protect it. Wouldn't want to scratch that lovely black paint! 😛

 

[FallisPhoto]

I dont have any batteries for the camera yet, so im trying to test it without. ...

The GTN/GSN cameras (along with the rest of the G-series) have voltage regulation circuitry built into them. They will run on pretty much any battery between 4 and 6 volts that you can stuff into them and pad out to make fit and that you can arrange a good electrical contact for.

... But i dont know if the apeture blades in the lens are working properly. They seem to move a little when the shutter button is pressed, but harldy anything. Not enough to let any light in atleast. I've been doing a litle bit of reading and the best i can come up with is that it's a P.O.D (pad of death) problem, or maybe the blades are actually stuck? Does this sound alright?
I just wanted to confirm this with someone who knows more about these cameras than me. Any help is appreciated ...

Thea pad of death can have some weird effects, but I don't think that this is one of them (at least not one I have run into before and I have most of the G-series). Sounds to me more like a typical sticky shutter problem, common to lots of vintage leaf shutter cameras. Try flushing the shutter with naptha. You'll need to do it several times or the gunk just redeposits as the naptha dries.

 

[Keith]

I've had no luck with the naptha method. The shutter on my Crown Graphic was sticking at lower speeds and after the naptha treatment it got substantially worse. The gunk that was causing the problem just got spread around even more and it had to be stripped and cleaned properly! 🙁

 

[FallisPhoto]

But...
The damn shutter doesnt close 🙁 I have to pull the rewind lever back a little bit until i hear a "click" and the shutter will go back to the closed position. (Pad of Death? Or maybe just stuck? Seems to close perfectly when i dont have the battery in it) ...

Now that is almost certainly a pad of death problem and is absolutely typical.

... Oh, and last but not least, the red and orange exposure lights seem to flicker on and off quickly when i half press the shutter down. I guess its good they're atleast turning on, but they're pretty erratic, and dont seem to show up in the viewfinder at all.

The flickering lights would indicate that you either have an intermittent short, a bad electrical contact (check your aluminum foil), or a corroded battery wire. BTW, go here and scroll down to the bottom of the page to find a better way of setting up the battery: http://mattdentonphoto.com/cameras/yashica_gsn.html It could also be the POD, but I think it is more likely to be an electrical problem.

 

[FallisPhoto]

I've had no luck with the naptha method. The shutter on my Crown Graphic was sticking at lower speeds and after the naptha treatment it got substantially worse. The gunk that was causing the problem just got spread around even more and it had to be stripped and cleaned properly! 🙁

You have to not only put naptha in there, but also get the dirty naptha out. Otherwise the gunk just redeposits. The solution is to either dunk the shutter several times and then let it drain (not recommended unless you are planning to open it up and relube it), or apply the naptha to the shutter blades only, with a sopping wet Q-tip, alternately applying it with the wet end and mopping it up with the dry end, working the shutter between each application, while wet. You may have to do this 50 or 100 times to get it all. It does eventually work; the gunk from the side of the shutter blades you can't get at dissolves when you work the wet shutter and transfers to the side you can get at, a little at a time. Eventually, you get it all, but it is not a quick job.

Of course stripping it down and hand cleaning it works much better.

 

[AzzA]

hehe, glad ive been a bad influence PhotoJim 😉
Hmm, after i get the camera working, my next step is finding a case for it, that looks relly nice Keith.
Thanks for the info FallisPhoto, i'm going to attempt the p.o.d fix over the weekend.
cheers

 

[btgc]

The GTN/GSN cameras (along with the rest of the G-series) have voltage regulation circuitry built into them.

are you convinced about this, have seen it ?
I'm asking because I'm such a layman in electronics; I've relied on findings by guy from Finland who published his findings on his own page, also in flickr Electro forum (sorry not providing links) - that Electro series don't have voltage regulator. So he claims, at least he haven't found it there. From stripdown pics and whole description I judge that I'm too incompetent to object his statements, so one option is trust him. Another is - don't trust, but that would be stupid because of what I revealed before.

 

[FallisPhoto]

are you convinced about this, have seen it ?
I'm asking because I'm such a layman in electronics; I've relied on findings by guy from Finland who published his findings on his own page, also in flickr Electro forum (sorry not providing links) - that Electro series don't have voltage regulator. So he claims, at least he haven't found it there. From stripdown pics and whole description I judge that I'm too incompetent to object his statements, so one option is trust him. Another is - don't trust, but that would be stupid because of what I revealed before.

I'm told that voltage regulation is by bridge circuit. Never challenged this or checked up on it because it is the only way that how the camera works makes sense to me. Here's a simple empirical test: A GSN will function accurately (give good accurate autoexposures) with an alkaline battery, from the time you install it until the time it pretty much quits. I know mine does. This in spite of the fact that an alkaline battery has a voltage curve like a ski slope. Other cameras, like the Canon Canonet GIII QL-17, Minolta Hi-Matic 7S, and Pentax Spotmatic II won't do that and need to use either modified (via schottky diode) silver oxide batteries, or zinc/air batteries, that have a much more level voltage curve. I don't believe in magic, or camera fairies, so what other explaination is there?

 

[btgc]

A GSN will function accurately (give good accurate autoexposures) with an alkaline battery, from the time you install it until the time it pretty much quits. I know mine does.
....Other cameras, like the Canon Canonet GIII QL-17, Minolta Hi-Matic 7S, and Pentax Spotmatic II won't do that and need to use either modified (via schottky diode) silver oxide batteries, or zinc/air batteries, that have a much more level voltage curve.......so what other explaination is there?

can we explain that other cameras you mentioned run on 625/675 cells which alkaline versions die too rapid, while Electro's battery outputs from 6V down to....I don't know values, I assume maybe PX28 batterys lower value is still high enough to run meter ?
I wouldn't give my arm for this - alkalines are alkalines. Maybe some more competent Electro'ers can shed light on this issue.

UPD: I've found mentioned flickr discussion , at the end Tuomasvilhelm explains his point, there's also link to his webpage. Seems that there isn't voltage regulator though circuit is tolerant to voltage accross 4.5V-6.5V - this comes from Yashica Electro service manual.