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10-31-2020, 06:09 AM   #1
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Minolta X500 Headaches...

Yes, yes I know its a Pentax forum and I am in a few Minolta groups to express my love of Minoltas ( Just like I am in some Nikon Groups to blab on about the wonderful world of Nikon ) but I am having a mare of a time with an X500 and as I know there are some heavy hitters on camera repair round these parts I thought I may as well ask here as well as on some other groups.

I have been working on an X500 that was in poor shape, mostly cosmetic but a few other issues too. All seemed to be fine and she film tested ok. I have been using her on and off for a few months and she always had a small niggle. On shutter release she had a tiny stall, just fractions of a second but she was noticeably slower off the mark than her twin sister. This stutter is very very very tiny and about the delay an XD or X700 has due to their final check metering. I had put this down to probably a small difference in the mirror dampening springs or just variance in the assembly when she was manufactured.

BUT....yesterday I loaded a film and she stalled entirely. Mirror started to rise and then just stopped and she locked up completely. Unloaded the film and voila she works again but this was just a coincidence.

Examination and testing has shown up a fault...

Symptoms are always the same, the mirror starts to rise, lens stop down has not started and bang ! She just stops. The lightest touch on the mirror or the aperture stop down actuator will let her complete the cycle and the camera works fine when laying on its back, side, upside down or any position other than a standard landscape orientation.
The fault can disappear for a few frames but always comes back quite quickly. It can be aggravated by having the shutter turned to brief where she will hang up 100% of the time and after such a hang will then play up and fail reliably on every frame.

The mirror is not jammed in any real sense, just breathing on it will release it to complete its cycle. Its hard to believe anything mechanical is at fault and yet so perfectly balanced.

I have seen this in another X500 but that was caused by drek in the aperture actuator gear in the base. Some X series have a foam pad located in base cover immediately above the release capacitor and of course this degrades and can gunk up the gear in the base of the body. If you look at an X series base there is often a small square marked into the plastic which was obviously moulded in to assist assembly with getting the square bit of foam in the right place.

My best guess is......

A.... the electromagnet release is gummed up, cant quite see how this would stop the mirror though
B... Its capacitor-itis but I have never seen one do this, normally the camera would just be dead
C... some lubrication issue but perfectly running X series always seem dry inside and they are mostly nylon gears

I am loathe to do the capacitor on this one as its a flex circuit and they give me the heebies so I really dont want to do the cap unless I am near sure thats the problem.

Soooo any ideas ? Anyone seen before ?

I have to say for all the talk of capacitor problems I have only seen that once ( on an XGM ) every X series I have seen has had other issues but they often look like the symptoms of capacitor fails. They have run from shutter derails, faulty wiring, gummed up mechanisms from decayed light seals, toasted electronics, electromagnet fails and every ill imaginable. Lord how I hate electronic cameras ( said the person with a shelf full of XDs, X100s )


Last edited by Astro-Baby; 10-31-2020 at 06:17 AM.
10-31-2020, 08:48 AM   #2
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While I have no wisdom to pass on about your problem, I am curious about the minolta groups you frequent since I own a few myself.
10-31-2020, 09:39 AM   #3
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10-31-2020, 11:49 PM   #4
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I'd suspect the capacitors. Capacitors can deteriorate slowly at first. The caps in my 80PX ring light went slowly - the focusing lamps would first not shut off. Then the would only stay on at first for a few seconds but after using them a few times they would stay on for about 30 seconds. Then they wouldn't stay on at all. This over the course of a year or so. I replaced all the caps with the same value but the lights only stay on for 10-15 seconds. Good enough I guess. There are two trimmer pots on the circuit board but these didn't seem to affect the lamp duration. Might have some effect on the TTL flash duration, no way to tell without reverse engineering the circuit or measuring the flash.

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