Yashica Minster III dead meter

[Durkin]

Hi there, woop first post 🙂

Does anyone know how to go about repairing the light meter of a Yashica minister III. I just checked it out and it seems to be dead.

any help would be great thanks!

 

[ErnestoJL]

Welcome to the forum Durkin!

The Yashica Minister III has a selenium cell based meter.
As with most of them, the selenium cells do die after some (say 20+) years and the meter doesn´t react to any light. This happens because the combined action of humidity, lighting conditions during storage, temperature, etc.
So, if the meter itself (the moving coil instrument) is OK, probably what isn´t working anymore is the cell. Due to it´s particular circular shape, unless you get another good one from a donor camera, the repair would be very difficult or just impossible.

Here is a guy who knows a lot about Yashicas, Greyhoundman. Perhaps he, or other RFF members may direct you to a repair shop able to carry the job.

Another solution is to get a handheld meter or use the sunny f16 rule which if used correctly, works almost allways.

Cheers.

Ernesto

 

[Durkin]

Yeah i was thinking that i'm pretty much going to have to use the sunny 16 rule for shooting now. i wish the meter would work though it would be nice 🙂

thanks a lot for the help anyway!!

 

[FallisPhoto]

Hi there, woop first post 🙂

Does anyone know how to go about repairing the light meter of a Yashica minister III. I just checked it out and it seems to be dead.

any help would be great thanks!

Selenium is a poisonous heavy metal, like mercury, and very few people out there are making selenium cells anymore. Of those very few, nobody I've been able to find out about is making a ring-shaped cell. Most also have the drawback of only having an average 10 - 15 year lifespan (I think ErnestoJL was bing generous with 20 years; Yashica's cells were not the best). The biggest culprit is humidity. Moisture plus oxygen corrodes selenium cells.

There are a few people who have tried replacing them with modern silicone photovoltaic cells (there is at least one guy, apparently, who is successfully doing it with Russian SLRs), but again, you would need a ring shaped cell, and I can't imagine where you'd get one.

For me, seeing one of those bubbled windows anywhere on the front of a camera is reason to pass it up, let alone a circular one.