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Can an SLR "kill" a motor drive?
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 2:46 pm    Post subject: Can an SLR "kill" a motor drive? Reply with quote

Hey folks,

I recently purchased a Minolta X-570, which seems to work perfectly, and decided that I'd like to get a motor drive for it. The one that fits is Minolta's MD-1, a simple, no-nonsense drive that reminds me of a Nikon MD-12. Gets the job done with a minimum of fuss.

So I found an MD-1 over at the goodwill site and I bid on it and won it. It's actually in really nice looking shape -- better looking cosmetically than the pics showed.

When I hooked it up to my X-570, everything worked fine. I dry fired it probably 40 times or so -- I was careful to set the shutter speed to 1/60 or higher when shooting on Continuous-High because I didn't know how it handled slower speeds.

So anyway, after firing away with it, the drive suddenly stopped and the red LED on the back came on. Well, every drive I've even used that has that red LED on the back is saying to me that it's reached the end of the roll. To get rid of the red light, all that should be required is to use the little lever right next to it that pushes in the button on the bottom of the camera, which allows film to be rewound. Some drives also have a wheel with numbers on it that must be reset, but this drive doesn't have one.

So, I pushed up the lever and nothing happened. The red light stayed on. I turned it off then on, and the red light lit back up. After messing with it for a while, I figured out that the red LED condition only occurs when the drive is set to a continuous setting, either high or low. It does not light up on "S". But when the drive is set to Single, it doesn't operate at all -- it's as if the drive is switched off when "S" is selected. There is no separate on-off switch on the drive. The dial on the handle has an "off" setting between "S" and "CH".

Whenever I turn the dial back to a "C" setting, the drive "clacks" and advances the drive cog 1/2 turn. I can have the drive dismounted, and just holding it in my hand, rotate that dial back and forth, and its behavior doesn't change. It "clacks" when the dial is turned to "C" as the LED comes on, and the drive behaves as if it's switched off when set to "S".

You know, the drive worked perfectly when I first hooked it up to my camera. And then, after maybe forty cycles, it's basically a pile of junk. Unless I pay even more money to get it fixed. So, it occurred to me that maybe the drive didn't spontaneously break. What if the camera caused this drive to, in a sense, self-destruct? Is this sort of thing even possible? I suppose it might be, if we think that the drive may have been sitting unused for a few decades, then suddenly thrown into furious use -- might that be enough to cause something like an o-ring or gasket or maybe some sort of elastic cushion inside to let go?

I did a half-hearted attempt at dismantling the drive. I removed all the screws from places where I knew to be screws, but it didn't want to come apart at all. So there are either some screws well hidden or there's a trick to getting this thing open.


PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 3:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Can an SLR "kill" a motor drive? Reply with quote

cooltouch wrote:
So there are either some screws well hidden or there's a trick to getting this thing open.


usually the hidden screws are under fake leather (if there is some)


PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 4:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The removable pieces of leatherette and a rubber grip were the first things I pulled off. Found four screws under the leatherette, and surprisingly none under the rubber grip. Didn't do any good. There are three or four more exposed screws on the grip handle. The top one loosened the switch cap on top, but the others didn't do anything that I could tell.


PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Try a new battery?


PostPosted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

is it this drive?

https://yadi.sk/d/lXxqE-fuYqWDn


PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 8:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

kansalliskala wrote:
is it this drive?

https://yadi.sk/d/lXxqE-fuYqWDn


I'm not familiar with that service and I don't want to install it on my drive -- besides, I'm on my iPad right now.

Is that a repair or parts manual for the MD-1?


PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 8:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

visualopsins wrote:
Try a new battery?
I loaded 8 fresh "AA" batteries into it, very first thing . . . Of course.


PostPosted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 10:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

sent you pm


PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 9:37 am    Post subject: My CANON Winder 'A' Reply with quote

I have the same trouble with my Canon Winder 'A' -- it WAS working well then suddenly now it will not wind but the red light comes on -- yes -- I put in fresh batteries . I also found screws in base and undid with a JIS screwdriver BUT nothing would come apart to get in further. Anyone any idea please ?


PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, first thing I'd do would be to see if I could locate a repair manual for the Winder A. I just did a google search, though, and didn't get any hits.

Check under the leatherette piece(s) for additional screws. Check inside the battery compartment. If there are any thin, flat pieces of aluminum on the drive, there might be something under, so it might need to be pried up to get to the screws.

Based on my experience with actually getting into the "guts" of a motor drive, it's a confusing load of shafts, gears, cogs and levers. Plus you have a circuit board or two to confuse the mess. Not very easy to tell just what's wrong is all I'm saying.

Fortunately for you, Winder A's are common -- and cheap.

kansalliskala, thanks, I was able to d/l that pdf. It's really just a parts list with exploded diagrams, however. Still, it should help me getting the drive apart. I haven't done anything with it since it stopped working a few months ago.


PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 1:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Unclear is the cause of the problem being in the camera or winder mechanics, yes?

I know from experience how to burn out an electric motor, evidenced by a couple cheap circular saws I used too hard (many years ago! Laughing). -- check motor wires for continuity...

A dilemma is will the body burn out another winder? Careful with that, of course.

"Hard a-lee!" On a completely different tack, are there any electrical connections to the body that could be corroded?


PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 3:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, with respect to the subject motor drive, a Minolta MD-1 in cosmetically excellent condition, and to the camera I tried it out on, an X-570, also in cosmetically excellent condition, I can state the following:

I do not believe the reason why the motor drive is not working is because of a problem with the camera. There is simply no evidence for this. The coupling rotates freely and the electrical contacts are clean and not corroded.

I don't believe I burned up the motor drive's motor. If I would have actually burned up its motor, there would have been smoke and lots of heat. There was none of either. When a electric motor "burns up" the insulation on the wires has begun to melt, causing a cascading short circuit, which generates a lot of heat and causes the windings' insulation to melt more and smoke. Nothing like this happened.

If the answer to my question is "yes", then yes it is possible that this camera -- or any one in good repair -- can break a motor drive. Note that, in my original question, I did not ask if a camera could burn out a motor drive. I asked if it could "kill" one.

The reason why I posed the question was I was wondering if something perhaps on the perishable side might have let go inside. For example, I know that some SLRs use plastic cushions in their mirror boxes, to reduce the slap of the mirror assembly. I have dismantled some of these "modern" SLRs that have been getting up in age now, only to find that these plastic cushions had literally disintegrated. I see this sort of thing happening in "modern" power tools, even. I have a nice, supposedly high-quality Bosch brand random orbital sander that isn't even 10 years old. It uses some sort of cushion between the rotating disk and the pad where the sandpaper goes. This cushion has turned into the consistency of swiss cheese, and has begun to just fall out of the sander in crumbling bits, rendering it totally useless. So, I'm wondering if there might be some sort of similar perishable item or items that Minolta decided to use in that motor drive that might have given out when I cycled it right after I bought it. Because I can't really think of what else it might be -- mechanically, at least. I dunno, maybe it might be something as simple as a cold solder joint on the circuit board(s). That would be nice if that were all it was.