At 09:59 AM 6/15/03, Garth Wood wrote:
I think the OM-4 has an undeservedly bad rep. If you get a good price for
it, buy it. If you don't want it and the price is good, consider hooking
me up. 8^>
I also believe the OM-4 issues are blown out of proportion compared to the
occurrence rate (sorry Tom). The 357 silver cells last about a year in
mine. I replace them during my birth month, whether they need it or
not. I've had my OM-4 overhauled (thank you John H.), but the reasons had
nothing to do with battery or circuit problems.
IMHO a very sizeable percentage of the "battery eater" reputation is due to
the owner not knowing its sensitivity to battery voltage. Those who insist
on using alkalines or the double-cell battery in one package (it's not an
AgO) are doomed to replacing batteries very often. Likewise, those who
throw all their batteries loose into a drawer when they pull them out of
something are also destined to keep trying to use old batteries that are
near end of life.
A guy at work bemoaned his "battery hungry" OM-4 would go dead in 3 months
or less. I finally asked him to pull the cells out and bring them to
work. He did. One of them was AgO and the other was an alkaline, made by
different manufacturers. Pulled out a Fluke voltmeter. The AgO was OK,
but not brand new. AgO's have a slight voltage drop very early and then
are pretty steady for rest of life. The alkaline was way down in voltage;
definitely past half-life.
No wonder it didn't work. Asked him where he got his batteries: "I've got
a drawer full of batteries and root through it until I find the ones I
need." Asked him if he every disposed of batteries and got "hmmmmmm" for a
reply. Told him to *buy* a brand new set of 357 watch cells and see what
happened. He kept on asking me about lower priced alkalines. I insisted
he get the watch cells and showed him voltage/time curves as the different
types discharge. He finally did; it miraculously cured his OM-4. Should
have made a smokin' deal offer to buy his power-hog OM-4, telling him I
would find a way to live with the problem. Yes, this is anecdotal, but the
battery "junk drawer" resides in quite a few homes too.
Battery Failure Modes Applicable to More than the OM-4:
Something accidentally pressing on the viewfinder illuminator button while
it's being stored (in the camera bag) will drain the batteries very, very
quickly. Similarly, something pressing slightly on the shutter release
enough to keep the viewfinder LCD screen powered up continuously will also
send a set of cells to an early death. These two "failure modes" are the
common reasons for using the "red" shutter speed position for
storage. Doing so won't stop the "idle" drain, but the viewfinder
illuminator and the LCD screen are disabled in the mechanical (red) 1/60th
and "B" shutter speed positions. They are disabled as soon as the shutter
speed ring is set to either of the "red" mechanical shutter speeds, and
cannot be powered up until it's set to one of the "blue" or "black"
electronic shutter speeds.
I believe that taking due care with batteries to power an OM-4 is the
secret to fixing many of them that have been labeled as battery eaters.
-- John
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