Olympus XA, Please help.

[Petrolhead]

I acquired a Olympus XA for a song at our local junkyard. The problem is, the shutter fires intermittently. When the shutter does fire, the shutter speed responds correspondingly to changes in the aperture.

The shutter always fires on the first time when the shutter button is pressed but then after about six shutter fires, it stops firing and the shutter does not respond anymore. I have ruled out bad / intermittent contacts on the shutter button as it triggers the self timer without fail when in self timer mode.

I thought it was the alkaline LR44 that caused the problem but the same problem also happens when I put in SR44's which is the recommended battery for the Oly.

Any help appreciated. Thanks

 

[lynnb]

Very infrequently mine does not fire. Usually closing and opening the clamshell solves the problem, but I don't know if that is just coincidence.

 

[john neal]

I don't know if it is true, but I read somewhere that the red shutter button actually works by changing its elkectrical resistance when you squeeze it. When they get old and, ultimately, compressed, they don't change resistance enough.

Of course, that could all be specious nonsense - I have never stripped down an XA to find out.

 

[ZeissFan]

I recall reading somewhere (on the Web, of course) about the possibility of dirty electromagnets.

 

[Ranchu]

It may be the switch that senses whether the clamshell is open, it's at the top front by the rewind knob (inside the case). Or it may not. There are also some switches underneath the bottom cover that are easier to get to. You can clean it with 90% alcohol, just don't lose the cylindrical bearing under the top of the clamshell. Here is an XA2 from f16sunshine, the XA is different in that t.he button mechanism stays with the camera body on the XA instead of being part of the top as on the XA2. There is a screw you have to remove underneath the red button (on the XA only!), you have to peel off the red cover (on the XA only!) by prying with a tiny screwdriver (for instance). There will be two screws under it, one will let you get the top off, the other will dismantle the shutter button switch. You want to avoid that, generally. Once again, the XA and XA2 shutter buttons are completely different. Here is also a service manual, so you can see.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137072

http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/repairmanuals.html

 

[Petrolhead]

Thanks everyone, for the replies,
I have opened up the camera, I broke the PCB trace for the beeper while trying to remove the top cover but I should be able to restore the connections when I reassemble the camera.
Compared to the Yashica's electro 35 which I am quite familiar, space is a premium for the oly. After studying the repair manual, I will unsolder several wires and try to remove the lens board to inspect and clean the electromagnets.
The manual suggest to remove the viewfinder before removing the lensboard, can the lensboard be removed without removing the viewfinder ? I feel uncomfortable removing the viewfinder because of the mechanism that couples the lens focusing to the viewfinder. The drawings are not clear in the Oly service manual.