[Scott_the_Artist]

My question is if a battery compartment on a Spotmatic is badly corroded, how difficult is it to make repairs? Is it even possible or worth it?

[séamuis]

I know nothing about cleaning corrosion, but it could be easier to purchase a non working spotmatic off the bay and just switch bottom plates. the battery compartment is connected to the plate, so its a simple switch.

[Scott_the_Artist]

Well that seems simple. Thanks.

[wlank]

My question is if a battery compartment on a Spotmatic is badly corroded, how difficult is it to make repairs? Is it even possible or worth it?

Or, you could send it here: Eric Hendrickson

[séamuis]

Or, you could send it here: Eric Hendrickson

that's a huge price to pay for someone who just needs to clean a battery compartment. not worth it IMO unless the OP feels the camera need a CLA. you could shoot Eric an email though asking him if he has any NOS bottom plates. he does do parts replacement if needed when doing a CLA. but as far as im concerned, my suggestion is by far the easiest and cheapest option. you could likely get a spotmatic off the bay much cheaper than sourcing a replacement plate alone much less paying to have it cleaned.

[Nesster]

I had two such - a SP1000 and a plain SP.

Here's what you can try: take the bottom plate off and put it (battery compartment end down) in a cup of plain white vinegar. Let soak awhile, and see if that helps. If not, let soak a bit longer.

My SP battery cover unscrewed, and I cleaned it with some contact cleaner + a contact conditioning liquid. The SP1000 bottom was so bad it never did get loose - and I left it in the vinegar soak for a couple of days, which kind of dulled the chrome.

As the SP shutter mechanism's jammed, I used the SP plate in the SP1000, and have had no problems at all.

ps. if you happen to own a good spanner wrench, you may get more purchase with the battery cover with one of these. I didn't have one at the time...

pps. I'm assuming by corroded you mean you can't get the battery cover off?

[rpriedhorsky]

Another suggestions I've read is to cool the bottom plate e.g. with ice cubes or some other method - the dissimilar metals will shrink differently, perhaps enough to get the thing off.

But if your battery compartment is corroded, I would strongly suspect that you need a CLA anyway.

[clockradio]

As mentioned above, vinegar is a good way to clean off corrosion from batteries.

It sounds like you have the battery compartment opened already so you might not need to worry about soaking the whole plate, but it would be worth taking the bottom plate off just to see how the rest of the wiring under there looks (and how desperate a CLA might be). In any case, I'd just clean the metal contacts with some vinegar and fine grit sand paper if need be.

For what it's worth I had a SPII that had the battery door sealed by a leaky battery and a few hours soak in vinegar and I had it opened. I cleaned the contacts and the meter was spot on.