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Sadly the Leicina Special has either a dead motor or motor control circuit. The seller is refusing to take the camera back or refund, so the transaction is currently with Paypal as a dispute. The seller has so far offered a €200 rebate on the €575 purchase price. I am waiting to see what Paypal say but their communications to date are total gobbledygook and make no sense at all. 

If it is just the motor there are two possibilities: 1) I think the motor on the much cheaper to buy Leicina Super cameras may be the same, (and maybe the motor control circuit as well), so if I buy a working example of the Super, I might be able to cannibalise it to repair the Special. 2) There is a company in London which can repair/rewind small DC motors. 

Wilson

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I'm sorry for your annoying situation…  about the exchanging of motor with the one of a Super… I'm doubrful is a viable way :huh: : the Special has several addons (vs. the Super) that involve the motor : it has slow motion at 54fps... it even allows, iirc, a partial rewind of film for various effects… surely the control unit is very different… but maybe also the motor in itself…    Imho, is more probable that the motor is decently maintainable  (though … surely not so fantastically maintainable/tunable as the old English-made DC motors of old Scalextric slot cars… :D)

Edited by luigi bertolotti
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21 minutes ago, luigi bertolotti said:

 (though … surely not so fantastically maintainable/tunable as the old English-made DC motors of old Scalextric slot cars… :D)

Luigi,

I used to be very keen on Scalextrix and would go to evenings at pubs in London in the late 1960's which had big courses. We built up our own titanium chassis cars with super powerful ball race motors, paper thin polycarbonate bodyshells and soft sticky sponge rubber tyres on wide alloy wheels. I got all my Scalextrix kit out of the attic not long ago for my grandsons and found a couple of the "Pub racer" cars as well as all the standard cars in the boxes. The problem was I only had standard Scalextric controllers. After a minute running the Pub Racers, there was smoke coming out of the controllers and we had to go back to the standard cars, which seem very slow afterwards. Apparently these high current motor cars are now banned in Scalextrix competitions. 

Wilson

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1 hour ago, wlaidlaw said:

Luigi,

I used to be very keen on Scalextrix and would go to evenings at pubs in London in the late 1960's which had big courses. We built up our own titanium chassis cars with super powerful ball race motors, paper thin polycarbonate bodyshells and soft sticky sponge rubber tyres on wide alloy wheels. I got all my Scalextrix kit out of the attic not long ago for my grandsons and found a couple of the "Pub racer" cars as well as all the standard cars in the boxes. The problem was I only had standard Scalextric controllers. After a minute running the Pub Racers, there was smoke coming out of the controllers and we had to go back to the standard cars, which seem very slow afterwards. Apparently these high current motor cars are now banned in Scalextrix competitions. 

Wilson

;)So we could speak a lot on the matter : I still have several pieces (still MINE… 3 female daughters…) but regrettably not a single old car which me stupid gave away 35 yeras ago... and I had fine ones… remember distinctly the Ferrari 156 sharknose, a Lotus (25 ?)  and two oddities : the kart (front wheels turning) and the sidecar … and I had also the Le Mans start and a curious "straight bumped bridge" which (iirc) was advertised as  "Goodwood item"    

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On 6/16/2019 at 7:10 AM, wlaidlaw said:

Sadly the Leicina Special has either a dead motor or motor control circuit. The seller is refusing to take the camera back or refund, so the transaction is currently with Paypal as a dispute. The seller has so far offered a €200 rebate on the €575 purchase price. I am waiting to see what Paypal say but their communications to date are total gobbledygook and make no sense at all. 

If it is just the motor there are two possibilities: 1) I think the motor on the much cheaper to buy Leicina Super cameras may be the same, (and maybe the motor control circuit as well), so if I buy a working example of the Super, I might be able to cannibalise it to repair the Special. 2) There is a company in London which can repair/rewind small DC motors. 

Wilson

Wilson,

It is sad to see such a beautiful equipment not working.

It may interest you a Leicina Special on sale in my country. It seems to be a beaten specimen, but the seller states that it is working, and might be useful to you.

https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-1229803966-filmadora-super-8-leica-leitz-leicina-special-super8-_JM?quantity=1&variation=36984230790

I look forward getting it restored.

Best regards,

Celso

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21 minutes ago, ph. said:

I just had a look at the old general catalogue. In addition towhat I wrote above abour R and arri mount adapters there was a Minolta one. Something for the digital M crowd ?

p.

 

I put the Optivaron 6 to 66mm Leicina lens on my CL with an M to L adapter. The image circle of the Optivaron is tiny!

Wilson

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5 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

I put the Optivaron 6 to 66mm Leicina lens on my CL with an M to L adapter. The image circle of the Optivaron is tiny!

Wilson

As must be… ;)  but as a passionate of long lenses… I remember you have some Zeiss of 1200mm (or is a vario/multifocal  ?) , for FF... THIS can be very exciting on the Leicina !!! :D

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7 hours ago, luigi bertolotti said:

As must be… ;)  but as a passionate of long lenses… I remember you have some Zeiss of 1200mm (or is a vario/multifocal  ?) , for FF... THIS can be very exciting on the Leicina !!! :D

Luigi, 

I have indeed got a 1200mm Zeiss in Contax mount and also the MR500-R plus the APO 2X-R extender. These respectively would have EFOV's of 7440mm and 6200mm on a Leicina Special. I have tried focusing the MR500 plus APO extender on the Leicina but you would need a far more rigid tripod than my wooden Berlebach, which is all I have in France. Even breathing on the camera causes image wobble. 

Wilson

Edited by wlaidlaw
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My leicina is resting, awaiting usable film material & development services. In its day it was very flexible even without adapters. The 10mm on a CL had a fisheye look although with a small circle. I assume the zoom at its widest would be similar.

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I am hopeful that a suitable donor for my Leicina may have been located. There is a cosmetically very challenged Special for sale, that apparently has working mechanical/motor functions. It is a bit complicated checking all this out at a few thousand kilometres distance, as I am once bitten, twice shy on Leicina Specials but fingers crossed, a solution may be in sight. If the donor checks out OK, it will wing its way over to me and I can then take both Specials to Sendean Cameras in London to perform the heart transplant. 

Wilson

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  • 2 weeks later...

There is a strange manner in holding the camera

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This was the position Leitz reccommended. The white bar, and the battery pack on super/special models,was actually called the "swing-over forehead rest-bar" in the english manuals. A point was made that it could be rotated for ease of viewing with either the left or right eye.  All about getting the most steady filming.

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€575 camera not working and seller refuses refund? If that was purchased on ebay then I would be pretty confident paypal will find in your favor. I find that they always lean towards the buyer- as their entire business model is aimed attracting buyers rather than keeping sellers. Often this is quite unfair and gives buyers too much power- but in a case like this it is great.

 

as for 'communication' via paypal or ebay- forget it- they are worse than useless. The poor plebs that man the phones have zero power to do anything- all seems to be controlled by arcane algorithms. But they usually find in the buyers favor- regardless of the details of the dispute- so your chances of getting a refund are pretty high.

 

Very poor form from that seller.

Edited by jaques
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I raised a complaint with both eBay and Paypal, who just wrung their hands and said "dear dear how very unfortunate" but did nothing. The threat of a Paypal reversal of payment however, engendered the offer of a €200 refund from the seller, at which point Paypal said: "Well there you are. Problem solved, Thank you and goodnight." 

Wilson

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Zitat

better to inspect what you buy

This is why camera fairs like the biogg annual one at Bievres is the ideal place for transactions beyond small-change. Large corporations are too busy to bother about one single customer. With the Leicina as with all battery-powered devices,I would look closely at corrosion inside the removable battery box.

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