battery drain concern on OM-2n

[michael_white4]

<p>I haven't used my OM-2n in about one year, it was stored without batteries.<br>

Today I put 2 brand new Energizer 357 silver oxide batteries in and tested the<br>

meter...shutter... etc for about 10 minutes, just playing around with a few different<br>

lenses I have. I didn't have any film in the camera at the time.</p>

<p>I noticed when I pressed the battery test the red LED was blinking.<br>

Hmm, I recall this means the batteries are low. Popped the batteries out and measured<br>

with my digital multimeter..... 1.42 Volts. After letting the batteries sit for a few hours<br>

the voltage comes back up to 1.59. Could this mean there's a high current drain<br>

problem in the camera ? Is there some common component that would cause this<br>

problem ? </p>

[michael_linn]

<p>Could be a variety of causes in a camera of that era.</p>

<p>I would start by cleaning all of the switches and contacts. Sometimes oxidation can form which will cause a short. When batteries are inserted after a long interval, it may take a substantial amount of power to reform the capacitors. Some OM models after the OM-1 will draw a small constant current from the batteries even when turned off. I am not sure of the reason for that, but it might have to do with the capacitors.</p>

<p>Secondly I would check for pinched wires; on your model, particularly under the ASA dial assembly. It can take years for wires pinched during assembly (or service) to fail. Olympus usually used red wires for power.</p>

[john_hermanson2]

<p>Could be that the batteries are not that new OR there IS something wrong with the camera. A properly operating untampered 2/2N will have NO battery drain issues. John</p>

[george_shihanian]

<p>I think it means your batteries are old, even though they may be new to you. Even if they're freshly bought by you, they still could have been in the store a longish time.</p>

[matthew_newton]

<p>What about testing the battery after a few seconds? 1.42v indicates, for a silver battery, that they are nearly exhausted. A high discharge would not reduce the battery voltage after it has been disconnected from the high draw sources unless the batteries themselves were nearly drained of capacity (voltage would immediately return to normal if the batteries are not drained).<br>

I don't know about normal silver battery behavior, but most batteries will have a higher initial voltage due to surface charge effects on the cathode and anode. This discharges within a few seconds normally and then stabalizes at its "deliverable" voltage. So hookup the battery to your voltmeter for a minute or so and see what the reading stabalizes at.</p>

[john_hermanson2]

<p>There is an intermittent dead short, (possible caused by tampering?) John</p>

[CCU]

The OM2 was notorious for burning up batteries and the batteries were notoriuos for having a very short shelf life. Very

often a set of batteries would die after a days use but shops would always blame the camera. Someone brought out a

single battery that would replace the two recomended by olympus which gave a vast improvement. There was a lot of

fuss that they invalidated the guarantee but I never had a problem. Sorry that this doesn' help you.