Hey Dave,
I've been thinking something similar, I have an OM4
with a mechanical problem, and I have had the thing
open to see if I can spot the fault, however I did
notice a couple of things electronically. On the
battery holder, there is a diode, quite a large size
one, which presumeably stops any damage occuring from
fitting the batteries in reverse. This looks (by its
size) to be a bit of an overkill, and I'm sure it must
swallow a couple of microamps in use, maybe it could
be replaced with a low power one, or removed
completely, assuming that you never put the batteries
incorrectly!!
Also I have noticed that under the top cover there is
a regular sized transistor, I'm not sure what it
controls exactly, but maybe it could be substituted
with an equivalent low power version. I'm sure that
transistors have moved on a little since the very
early eighties when these components were chosen by
Olympus.
Another thing that could have a bearing on current
drain is capacitors, they have a leakage which
continually drains current, (they may degrade with age
also) they could possibly be substituted with new high
performance ones with an improvement on current drain.
Please bear in mind that these are only ideas of mine,
don't go hacking into your Oly if you are not sure
about anything!!
The best thing to do (I think) would be to compare the
OM4T/Ti circuit with the OM4 one, I'm sure that most
of the IC's are similar (apart from the ones
associated with the full sync flash etc) it would be
interesting to compare the other components apart from
the IC's themselves to see if it would be possible to
"upgrade" an old OM4 somewhat, alas I have 2 OM4's and
no OM4T/Ti circuit with which to compare them, maybe
someone out there in Olyland could give us some more
information??? ANY TAKERS??
Chris
--- DBellamy2k@xxxxxxx wrote: > Dear list,
>
> Has anyone ever proposed any kind of retrofit to fix
> the battery-devouring
> properties of the OM2SP/3/4 ?
>
> I have my own 4 suggestions (which are probably
> being proposed for the 1000th
> time I know, but I am new to the list):
>
> 1. Make a new battery compartment cover with a bit
> of insulating material
> which can be slid across to disconnect the
> batteries!
> 2. Wire up an off switch to a position on the
> exposure compensation dial
> (tough if you want that minus 1 and two thirds
> stops!)
> 3. Wire up an off switch to the Auto/Manual switch
> (but no room for another
> position on the OM-2SP especially and maybe putting
> another click stop on the
> lever can't be physically done)
> 4. (The one I like!): Wire up an off-switch to the
> self-timer lever so that
> pushing it to the left switches the entire camera
> off, rather than just the
> beeper.
> Oh yes, and:
> 5. (The one I like even more!): Wire up an
> off-switch to the self-timer lever
> so when you push it to the right it beeps for 20
> seconds and then turns the
> camera off. Great for that guy that buys the camera
> from you and then goes to
> take that all important shot of himself and his
> mates outside the pub one
> night!).
>
> Dave Bellamy.
> http://hometown.aol.com/sitesearch/
>
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