YASHICA ELECTRO 35 Rangefinder Film Camera Instruction Manual
- October 27, 2023
- YASHICA
Table of Contents
YASHICA ELECTRO 35 Rangefinder Film Camera Instruction Manual
Overview
Since its introduction in the mid 1960’s over four million Yashica Electro 35 cameras have been sold. Although some external changes have been made in the years since introduction most of the changes in the Electro 35 have been improvements inside the camera. Due to the large number of Electro 35’s in use, you probably have seen or will be seeing customers with broken Electro 35’s. Despite the fact that the Electro 35 uses electronics to control shutter speeds, it is not a difficult camera to repair if you identify the source of the trouble before starting disassembly.
Instructions
Older Electro 35 cameras, unlike those in production today, do not have gold-
plated contacts. In these cameras dirty contacts and contact brushes in the
function selector switch are a fre-quent source of trouble. The contacts which
give difficulty most often are those used to select “Flash”, “Auto” or “Bulb”
operation. You can identify a problem in the function selector switches by
operating the camera in all three of its functions. Failure to operate in one
of three functions is indication of bad contacts in the function selector
switches. Fortunately these contacts are easy to reach. Remove the lens
identifi-cation ring and the front lens cell—this will expose six screws in
two groups of three. Remove the innermost group of three screws and lift the
selector ring assembly from the shutter housing. Use a soft pencil eraser to
clean the contacts and brushes. Dirt also interferes with the contacts in
newer shutter assemblies. When you clean the brushes and contacts in a newer
shutter use extra care as the gold plating in the contacts is easily damaged.
Sometimes the release switch which sequences the indicator lamps and con-trols
power to the shutter will become dirty and operate erratically. Cleaning the
release switch requires removing the front standard which is described later.
Erratic operation in the “Auto” mode may also he the result of dirty contacts.
Removing the screws holding the diaphragm resistor board will allow you to
clean its contacts on the boards reverse side as well as the contacts below
the resistor board.
We frequently receive descriptions of malfunctioning Electro 35’s which state
that the shutter delivers bulb on the flash setting with the yellow lamp
remaining on during the exposure -or that in low light the shutter won’t close
until the release button is allowed to come up–again the yellow light remain-
ing on during the exposure. The reason for this problem is a damaged or
missing switch coupling pad-which has allowed the camera’s electrical and
mechanical operation to become unsynchronized. Some technicians replace the
switch coupling pad after removing only the top cover. However replacing the
pad is easier if the front standard is removed first.
The National Camera Workshop Workbook covering the Electro 35 is an excellent
reference for disassembly steps and illustrations covering this procedure.
In a shortened form, here is the dis-assembly procedure. Unscrew the wind
lever cap screw and lift off the spring washer, wind lever and cocking cam.
Unscrew and remove the rewind knob. Unscrew the central retaining screw in the
ASA setting dial and lift off the setting ring, spring washer and dial. Remove
the two screws holding the battery check switch plate and tip the camera on to
its back letting the plate and battery check button fall into your hand. Take
out the three top cover screws and lift off the top cover being careful as the
sync wire still connects the top cover and camera body. You will probably find
it convenient to discon-nect the sync wire at this time.
Now free the camera’s control mod-ule from its rear bracket or post. If the
camera uses a bracket, remove the upper screw, loosen the lower screw, rotate
the bracket 90 degrees toward the back of the camera body and tighten the
lower screw. If your camera has its battery test lamp located in the film
counter remove the screw retaining the lamp bracket and lift off the lamp,
lamp bracket and green filter. The next step is to remove the bottom cover and
free the battery compartment by removing its two mounting screws. If your
camera has a third screw holding the battery test circuit board, also remove
this screw being careful not to lose the spacer between the circuit board and
camera body.
Carefully pry off the rangefinder cover and remove the rangefinder mounting
screws, then lift off the range-finder. Now peel back the front leather-ette,
remove the four front standard retaining screws and lift the front stan-dard
control module and battery com-partment from the camera body.
Push down slightly on the release rod and fold back the coupling arm actuator.
Remove all traces of the old pad and ad-hesive and install a replacement pad.
The replacement pad should be made from stiff rubber or a similar material.
Suitable stock for replacement pad is a rubber heel from an old shoe or a
rubber foot used on furnture. Soft rubber is unsuitable because it will flex
too much. Cut your replacement pad to .080″ thickness by .120″ x
.195″—Pliobond or another non-hardening adhesive, suit-able for use on rubber,
should be used to hold the replacement pad in place.
The Copal shutter used by Yashica in the Electro 35 is of an unusual design.
Rather than the conventional main lever/ leaf lever and blade operating ring
the Electro 35’s Copal shutter has separate blade opening and blade closing
mechan-isms. The shutter’s main cam is used to cock the opening and closing
mechan-isms and to release the blade opening mechanism. Due to its design the
Electro 35’s shutter sounds as if it is operating correctly even if the
shutter blades are gummy and fail to move. The camera’s
owner will probably be unaware that a problem like this exists until he gets a
blank film back from processing. When you encounter an Electro 35 which
operates correctly except that the shut-ter blade sticks, you may take the
entire shutter apart for cleaning or take a time saving short cut by flush
cleaning the shutter blades. By removing the lens identification ring and
front lens cell you will have access to the shutter blades. Moisten a “O-Tip”
in alcohol and gently swab the shutter blades. Be liberal but not sloppy in
your application of alcohol. While you are cleaning cock the shutter and trip
the release frequently. Once the shutter is operating continue cleaning until
all traces of the gum on the blades has been removed. Be sure to clean the
inner surface of the rear lens cell before reassembling the lens. Hold the
shutter open on”B” to clean the rear cell. Once the shutter is completely dry
replace the front cell and lens identifi-cation ring.
There are times when it may be neces-sary to replace the control module. For
example, if the photocell fails, the entire module must be replaced. There
have been a number of different control modules produced. Use the wiring chart
if you are installing a control module different from the one in your camera.
In the case of older cameras if a new control module is installed a new dia-
phragm resistor board must also be in-stalled. To check whether you must do
this, use the same disassembly procedure that you would use to clean the
function selector switch contacts. Examine the diaphragm resistor board. The
board will have two wires, a brown wire at one end and either a pink or a blue
wire at the other end. Resistor boards having a brown and a pink wire are
compatible with presently available control modules. Resistor boards having a
brown and a blue wire must be replaced (old boards 86012 of resistance and new
boards 10,00011 resistance—end to end). If you replace a resistor board,
unsolder the old board and solder the new board in discarding the pink wire.
Cameras into which a new module is installed must have a rear module mount-ing
post. If the camera uses a mounting bracket, the bracket must be removed and
replaced with a post.
A dirty switch, a bad switch coupling pad and dirty shutter blades, although
they don’t cause all the problems with the Electro-35 still checking these
three trouble prone spots first can be a time saver in the repair shop.