20 Most Recent Canon EOS-AE-1 35mm SLR Camera - Page 8 Questions & Answers

If the contacts have been cleaned in the battery chamber, check the lower contact post - it's spring loaded and often gets stuck and doesn't make good contact with the battery. A little WD40 usually will free it up. Your batteries are probably still good.

Hey dentryte,
According to the manufacturer this camera does require the battery to function at all. The usable batteries for this camera are Silver Oxide Battery (6V ) (Eveready (UCAR) No.544, JIS 4G 13, Mallory PX 28; Alkaline Manganese Battery (6V) (Eveready (UCAR) No.537, Mallory 7K l 3). I have included a link to a PDF download of your camera manual in case you don't have one. I hope this helps!

http://www.canonfd.com/pdf/a1.pdf

Sincerely,
Allan
Go Ahead. Use Us.

The problem is usually caused by a dirty release magnet. I can tell you how to fix it if you are handy with small tools

Just now saw your problem.....I can repair this for you. No it's not "overwound" you possible have some small piece of plastic that caused your second curtain to get hung up and thus jam the entire camera. I have probably repaired 500 AE-1's with the same problem. Art www.flcamerarepair.com

Send camera to me and I will advise you B4 repairs regarding cost etc. WWW.FLCAMERAREPAIR,COM Art Schneider

Try Google!

I did a quick search and came up with these two links. Both have slightly different versions of the manual.

http://www.canonfd.com/pdf/ae1.pdf

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/canon/canon_ae-1/canon_ae-1.htm

Matt

Send it to me with lens and I will e-mail you regarding cost and time involved....my best guess right now? 75.00 includes cleaning plus 5.00 to ship back to you, Art www.flcamerarepair.com

I'm afraid you have a somewhat serious problem. There is a tungsten cable that runs from the speed dial to the rewind side if the camera. This cable sets the brushes for the electrical contacts the are under the rewind assembly. Adjusting speeds or ASA changes the position of the contacts.

It is very likely that the cable has broken and needs replaced. Canon no longer supports these nor do they have parts

By releasing the magnet on the bottom as you have described, the shutter curtains will run together since there is no electrical current charging the magnet to hold the 2nd curtain. No Worries..

Canon does not make 80-200/2.8L nor 28-85/2.8L.
Not in the USA.
All those fast 1.0, 1.2, and 2.8L USM and with IS motors are not cheap.

I've just repaired the the 600mm/4.0L IS for a friend of mine. Parts were over $1,600.00.

Have you change with a new battery?

Or check the battery with a DVM(digital volt meter).

Or get some batteries and connect in series to equal to that voltage and use two wire leads. One lead to -negative side of the battery, other lead to +positive. Now, -neg to neg of camera and +pos to pos of camera.

You now have power to the camera to test. This will save money rather than buying the camera's battery for testing. AA, C or D will work, just look on the camera's battery to see the right voltage.

Examples: with two batteries (1.5VDC + 1.5VDC = 3..0VDC). So -(negative) of one battery to + (positive) of the second battery with solder.

-(-neg, battery, pos+) solder to -(neg, 2nd battery, pos+)+

left side , use black wire on -(Neg) and solder
right side, use red wire on +(Pos) and solder.

Now you have two leads, use those to connect to camera.

Do you get data from viewfinder?

Get a dummy film and put it in the camera , make shure that the film is fully loaded on to the take up spool and test it all the way through, It sounds like the film is coming off the take up spool. I have repaired a lot of these A1's and they don't suffer from this problem. yours Tim 01689 818009..

I assume you've tried cleaning the battery contacts & trying to ensure they aren't bent out of shape. So, the most likely cause is that the power switch has failed. I have an A1 myself which is now around 23 years old and very well used so I would hate to do this to it - but my only suggestion is to forget it and pick up a secondhand one, perhaps on eBay. They go for £50 or less there - less than the cost of even getting an estimate for repair, let alone getting the work done. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Battery ( 6 volts ) is situated in front on the left hand side. Small hinged door will pop open if you unlock at the bottom corner. Clean contacts before installing a new battery.

Do not worry. The part that is scratched or has some dirt on it is called fresnel lens ( or the focusing screen ) and scratches to this part will NOT effect quality of your pictures ( i.e. you will not see any of the scratches on your results ) . True it is a hassle to have to look through a dirty viewfinder but just ignore it for now and just take pictures.

Either just drip small amount of methilated spirits or benzine at the rim of the release button and lift with tweezer ( tweezer into the center of the button ) repeat several times . If this fails remove top cover and clean the shutter relase from inside.

To open the back pull on the rewind knob ( pulling up ) until back opens. Check that your 6 volt battery is ok ( ae -1 has an electronic shutter so will not work without a battery ): battery situated on the left hand side of the camera ( if it is facing you ) underneath small flip up door ( lock is at the bottom on the left of the small door ) . Check the battery by pressing the shutter release gently and seeing if your light meter needle moves. No movement ? replace battery. You have two modes for taking pictures : auto which is actually AV ( aperture priority) or full manual : both are set by moving the shutter speed dial on the top right hand side ( underneath film winding lever ).

Remove transport/winding lever and loosen the retaining ring underneeth. Gently lift shutter speed dial and reseat it. Tighten the retaining ring and reattach winding lever. ( the shutter speed dial is not engaging the mechanism inside the camera and you need to establish proper connection ).

Locate an independent camera outfit in your area and ask them to install one for you.

The Canon AE-1 has an electronic triped shutter and cocking system and requiires a battery to function. So yes the battery is required. Goog luck!