Mirror lock-up eos 300D
The problem
Thewas unable to take picture correctly, unless it was held upside-down. as google would suggest this was a common fault on some used and abused eos 300D housings.
A small in used for mirror lock-up would snap.
Camera held correctly.
Camera held upside-down.
Does not look ok.
Teardown to find the issue
Opening the the camera can bring aoubt other issues.
static and dust could ruin it.
but since it was not working anyway, teardown could begin.
The eos 300D body
First the back cover.
The flash capacitor.
This cpmponent is "dangerous", I discharged it with a 50kΩ.
and a finally a 10Ω resistor.
Trying to avoid a spark, did not want to risk transients damaging other parts.
Pin placementis now accessible.
The broken pin
Here is the pin.
Tried to clean out area while keeping dust away.
A remaining piece of the original pin.
The "fix"
Pefect fit. (fat paper clip)
Cut and twist.
Looks fine.
Secured with eleastic glue,
there will be a lot of vibrations.
Assembly in reverse order of course.
Final -20111228
Superb, it works again.
Update -20120121
Seems they sell spares.
Replaced the pin -cant really tell if it
made any difference...
Update -20210317
Found an old videoclip of the mechanism