Hello Steve,
I recently repaired one of these.
Its actually reasonably easy to do if you have some electronics experience.
Rejoining the ribbon cable is not a viable option, the part that usually
breaks is right in the hinge area. The easiest option is to replace most
of the length of the cable with a new cable. The type of the new cable
would depend on your resourcefulness. The solution I decided on was
ordinary computer ribbon cable and use a small strip of two wires. This
cable is the type used in most PC's to connect Hard drives etc. The cable
should last as long as the original, but this may depend on the wire
quality. I think the original flex circuit died from old age making the
plastic less flexible.
NOTE: These are rough instructions from what I remember doing, you may
encounter a differently constructed body. Also it may not be the best
solution, but it worked in my case.
PROCEDURE:
1 Remove Bottom Cover. Four screws.
2 Within the camera body, near the battery compartment, the ribbon cable
is
soldered to two wires, one is ground the other I think is the x-sync contact
from the flash circuit. Determine which wire is ground, this should be
obvious from where the wires lead to. Looking at the flex circuit cable
that runs to the back, trace the ground to the circuit track. You should
be able to work out which of the two copper conductors on the QD back is
connected to which wire on the camera body. Write this down. For example
WIRE SIGNAL COPPER TRACK
Blue Ground Top Trace whist looking at back from above
White Sync Bottom Trace .
3 Unsolder this connection and remove the broken stub of flex board. Keep
this bit for practising on.
4 Solder the replacement cable to the wires in the camera body. Cover
the
soldered connections using heat shrink insulation.
5 Feed the new cable through the hole in the body that leads to the hinge.
( A little tricky )
6 Remove metal cover plate on QD back, as I remember there are two
screws
securing it. This is the plate nearest the batteries on the QD back.
7 The ribbon cable should then be exposed. It leads to the main pcb in
the
back.
8 Cut the ribbon cable on the databack and make sure the cut will be
covered
by the cover plate. Leave enough of the original flex board to work with.
You should leave enought room for any mistakes you make.
9 Using some sort of tool like a knife or sand paper remove the plastic
covering the copper tracks. Remove about 2mm of the covering to expose
bright copper. One side of the flexible board is thick the other is just a
thin covering, remove the covering on the thin side. Practice on the bit
you cut off.
10 The copper will be now exposed on the QD flex board on the two tracks
that originally led to the body.
11 Cut the new cable that was fed through the hole in the body casting to a
suitable length, it should not be too long or it will get caught in the
hinge.
12 Make sure cable is not twisted or kinked.
13 Solder to the exposed copper tracks. Test your soldering iron
temperature on the excess flex board you chopped off. Just make sure it is
not hot enoguh to burn the board. Make sure that you use correct
electronic soldering methods, the iron should contact the board for a
maximum of around 5 seconds. Refer to an electronics type book for more
info.......
FIRST TEST
1 Put new batteries in camera and the back.
2 Fire shutter whilst looking at the small cutouts in the film pressure
plate,
3 If all is well there will be a small pulse of red light from each of the
holes
TO REASSEMBLE
1 After the first test.
2 Cover the exposed solder joints in the databack with some suitable
insulator, I suggest a drop of epoxy resin.
3 When dry reassemble back.
4 Feed excess cable back into the body.
5 Make sure that everything fits correctly. The excess wire cab be pushed
into the area around the battery compartment.
6 Replace Bottom cover
FINAL TEST
1 Run a test film.
ALL DONE.
Hope this helps
Stuart Goggin--- Begin Message ---
Hi,
I'm new to this list but have been a dedicated Olympus fan for longer
than
I care to remember. I recently aquired a secondhand OM10 Quartz which works
well except for a broken cable between the body and databack.
I was aware of this when I bought it and it didn't bother me at the time as
I got a good deal and it was only as a 5th body :-). Has anyone repaired or
had repaired one of these and is it likely to be worth the effort.
Thanks
Steve
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