Yo y'all,
a while ago someone here wrote about putting a rubber washer under the front
part of a flash shoe to get it to work. Well, being extremely busy trying to
get all the work done that had accumulated while I was away on my recent
vacation (why is it always that right after a vacation things get so stressy
that after a week you're ready for another vacation - anyway, hope to get
around to putting up a few shots in my gallery soon), and having to read up
on a backlog of over 2000 OM-mails, I had forgotten about it for a while
until tonight it came back to my mind.
So whoever wrote the respective mail (I'd have to conduct a lengthy search
in my archives) - I want you to know that I could kiss you. Well, not
really, unless you're of the female conviction, which I think you're not, so
let it suffice for me to say that your idea really helped me out - THANK
YOU!
I have a Shoe 4, with the usual cracks but reenforced by filling it with
epoxy, which one day had quit working. I could never quite figure out why,
as all the contacts seemed to be good, and a multimeter showed zero
resistance. It's been lying around in my closet for some time, but I
couldn't quite convince myself to throw it in the garbage. Actually, my Mom
used to claim that the constant mess I live in was due to my never dumping
anything. Of course, she really just never understood that tidiness is for
small minds, whereas real geniuses control and stand above the chaos.
Anyway, when today I remembered the mail about the washer I tried putting a
small piece of rubber (cut off a regular wide rubber band that had been used
to hold together some computer cables in the last delivery I got, a yucky
green, but who cares) between the front of this old shoe and my almost like
new 2N's prism housing (after taking off its equally almost like new Shoe
4), and guess what - it actually worked like a charm! The rubber piece is
now glued to the Shoe 4 in the right spot, and the whole concoction is
awaiting the return of my second 2N - for which I didn't have a shoe - from
CLA (this camera is no real beauty cosmetically, but after the overhaul I
shall now not only have a fully functional second 2N but also an optically
fitting and fully functional flash shoe on it :-))) ).
After a closer look it seems clear to me now what was causing the problem
(which is probably not too uncommon, as we're at least 2 persons on the list
who had it):
The ground contact between the shoe and the body is via the thread used to
attach the shoe to the body. The wheel used to tighten the shoe is pressing
against the base plate of the shoe, picking up ground from it. This base
plate seems to be made of something like brass, except for its rear part
which houses two pin contacts and is therefore plastic for insulation
purposes. For this reason, the wheel has to make its main contact with the
base plate more towards the front rather than the rear side of the base
plate. My theory is that with use the base plate gets very slightly bent in
a way that makes the wheel put all of its pressure on it towards the rear,
thus preventing it from making proper ground contact in front of the thread.
The rubber increases the pressure on the front side and - Bingo!
So this successful - and very easy - repair cost me nothing, and I can now
stop looking for a shoe for 2N No. 2 and spend the money for something else.
:-)
MtFbwy,
Volkhart
--
Volkhart Baumgaertner email: kyu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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