Repairing a Compur 1

Not very well...

I am not good at camera repair. This is for a lot of reasons. I don't have the patience or the dexterity to repair cameras. This all being said, I think the Compur shutters (larger than a 0, anyways) are fairly easy. I'll be honest, it's been quite a while, so here I'll just put some images up and a very, VERY rudimentary explanation of quick fixes to one or two problems.

The Compur 1 is really just one big ring and one big spring that have to activate or ignore a couple timers. Big ring and big spring will often have dried grease or oil on them, turning them to goo. This will gum your whole shutter, since big ring activates and ignores timers and big spring drives it.

Here, 521 is big spring and 528 is big ring. 539 is the time-setting plate (clean this too!), and 540 is just the faceplate that keeps everything on. Green areas should be lubricated. My shutter ran mostly fine after applying light oil — I use a toothpick, if that tells you anything — to the inner face of the spring. I used Triflow, as recommended on forums. Before applying new lubricant, though, make sure to clean the surface using naphtha. I just use Q-tips for this part, as the parts are pretty big and any fibers can be removed easily.

Oil here too! I messed up the position of 518, so my 1/400 could only fire on M, but that's just kind of how it goes sometimes. Be very conservative with your application of oil. If some gets onto the leaves or really anywhere it shouldn't be, everything will get worse. Make sure to keep a very close eye on all the hair-sized springs in there, as they're all important. If I remember correctly, 669 is pulled straight out, but has one of these hair springs on it that is entirely essential to operation. If you don't have a loupe (I didn't), a small 50mm prime is a nice easy magnifier. Just be careful not to crash the rear element into anything, or I guess hit yourself in the eyeball with the front.

If I remember right (probably not :/) this is the main timing section. The little lever next to the 304 label is pushed by 539 to set shutter times. The little module to the left of it, or where it would be if not pulled out for this view, is the self-timer module. If your self-timer is slow or hangs, a good 3/4 of the time it can just be solved by cleaning and relubing 521, 528, and 539. There MAY be a little goo on 540 too, so just double-check. If it still doesn't help, all I can say is good luck.

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