My Pentax K1000's shutter finally locked up mid-roll last Tuesday

I was out shooting at Piedmont Park and the mirror flipped up and just stayed there, dead silent. Got home and pried the bottom plate off and found the magnet wires had snapped clean off the solenoid. Anyone know a good source for that fine gauge wire without buying a whole spool?

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2 Comments

the_river3mo ago

Man I had the exact same thing happen on my K1000 like two years ago. Those magnet wires are ridiculously thin, like thinner than a human hair. Honestly you'd probably have better luck just harvesting the wire from an old broken electronic. I pulled some out of a dead hard drive once and it worked perfectly. The gauge is pretty standard for small solenoid repairs, so any fine enameled copper wire around 38-42 AWG should do the trick. There are some hobby electronics shops online that sell small quantities for cheap if you don't want to cannibalize something. Just strip the enamel off carefully with a lighter or sandpaper before soldering or it won't conduct worth a damn.

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blairf483mo ago

Yeah I feel ya on the lighter trick. Tried that once. Ended up with a little ball of molten copper and a lot of swearing. @the_river makes a good point about salvaging from old drives though. Probably still smarter than whatever I did.

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