skilphot

Thanks for the help! First the good news... the covers for the winder and speed knob were indeed glued on and simple to remove by leaving a drop of zippo lighter fluid seeping in for a minute, before lifting away with an X-acto blade. The further removal of the top cover was intuitively straightforward, involving pin-face nuts and a few cross-head screws - (on my Memotron CE-ii it was different than the CM4s description above). This revealed the ASA dial assembly which has two wiper contacts running over copper track contact pads of a PCB, this makes connections through a chain of surface-mounted resistors. Air duster to clean, then a few drops of contact spray. No need to re-assemble to test, fortunately. Great, it works fine! Put it all back together... same erratic needle. Opened it up again, flushed the ASA mechanism clean with lighter fluid... it works! Put back together, it´s erratic. Ehhh - seeing a pattern here? Must be a mechanical twist/clamping issue. So I started poking around with a toothpick, probing for loose connections. Found one of those resistors seemed to make the meter needle respond with a gentle pressure, perhaps a failing solder joint? Tried soldering it... this is where it starts to go downhill, trying to solder through a magnifying glass! Didnt help - another resistor was also seeming to respond to a poke -yep, same result - so to cut a long story short I suppose I never really found the root cause and now have a fine manual camera with no metering. And of course no automatic function which really defeats the whole point of this unusual camera. At least I still have a decent lens from it. BRAIN SURGERY INDEED ...unfortunately I have now lost the patient (and patience!)o_O

I have read that the speed dial can be removed by soaking in a drop of alcohol to loosen the glue, then prising off. I cannot see how to tackle the winder... what is that friction tool you mentioned?

Thanks for the ideas. I checked the ASA dial; on mine it is secured by a nut with 2 holes. Using a pin wrench showed it to be tightened OK. I did however discover that the meter (if unresponsive) could be activated by pressing down on the ASA dial... so I think I´m getting closer. Are you familiar with what is under the cover - and what steps to remove it? What is the expected electronics there, perhaps a potentiometer disc with spring load wiper of some sort? In which case would a drop of switch cleaner spray help? (like on crackling audio pots, for example). Meanwhile I will continue searching for a service instruction. Butkus site only has the users instruction book.

I have started using a CE-II and love the meter system ...when it works! It drops out, needle down although green battery check lamp is on. Wiggling the ASA dial seems to bring it back to life. Any ideas where to look inside to fix it?

I have started using a CE-II and love the meter system ...when it works! It drops out, needle down although green battery check lamp is on. Wiggling the ASA dial seems to bring it back to life. Any ideas where to look inside to fix it?

do you probably use a monocle also? LOL

Hanimar 135mm preset, rather bashed-up lens, nevertheless...

great, let´s go for the coffee cups!!!

Jan.31 in Amsterdam with a Zeiss Ikon Symbolica

Dont worry about batteries! Get an Olympus Pen EE2 - I love it to load a standard roll and get 72 shots - use B/w Kodak Tmax and resolution is just fine!

Yep, somehow it manages to make a modern-day photo look like a retro snapshot! As witness this windmill in Amsterdam...

Hopefully the manual will have cleared up many of the OPs questions, but one thing I noticed on mine recently was that the light meter seemed to be affected by whether or not I had my hand casting a shadow over the viewing window of the top plate ...is that normal,since wih the sun shing top-down behind me it made a considerable difference to the required exposure ...any thoughts?