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M8 bottom plate won’t open. Help!


Rössel

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I’m on vacation on an island and put a newly charged battery into my M8 this morning.

It started not responding so I tried to open the bottom plate for the newly charged battery but it is stuck.  I’m thinking I maybe didn’t properly seat it on the camera?

 I tried prying it open but no luck .

Help please!

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First things first, have you flipped up the lock on the bottom plate and rotated it?  (Sorry if this seems a stupid question to ask but we've had emergencies before where some obvious things had been overlooked.)

When the bottom plate is seated properly you should see the end of the tab poking through the slot on one end of the base plate.

If you've rotated the lock and still can't remove the bottom plate then there must be interference that might be the rotating lock not fully rotating inside.  This could be through detachment of the handle in which case you might need to find a repair shop.

Pete.

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On 6/23/2019 at 4:00 PM, farnz said:

First things first, have you flipped up the lock on the bottom plate and rotated it?  (Sorry if this seems a stupid question to ask but we've had emergencies before where some obvious things had been overlooked.)

When the bottom plate is seated properly you should see the end of the tab poking through the slot on one end of the base plate.

If you've rotated the lock and still can't remove the bottom plate then there must be interference that might be the rotating lock not fully rotating inside.  This could be through detachment of the handle in which case you might need to find a repair shop.

Pete.

Hi. Thanks for your swift reply. The little metal bit on the bottom doesn’t stick out now. I am enclosing (I hope) pertinent photos. I opened it just fine yesterday and inserted a charged battery. Right away I noticed something was amiss. I could not take a decent photo. And then I could not turn it on.  I’m frustrated.  Good thing I have my M3 1956 model and my iPhone here off the coast of Maine (Monhegan Island). Each year I try to photograph the island differently and this year was the M8’s turn.  I love its inadvertent Infrared ability.

Hmm.

I can’t figure out how to upload photos here.  Perhaps it’s because of the almost nonexistent WiFi 12 miles from the mainland.

 

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If the M8's bottom plate is not seated properly, when you turn the camera on you'll get a message on the screen that says "Attention Bottom cover removed" because the tiny pin on the bottom plate is not operating a microswitch just above the battery hole.

If you're not seeing that message then your battery might be completely empty but it sounded like a mechanical fault that was preventing you from removing the bottom plate in your previous post.  

Here's a link that explains how to post pictures to the forum that might help you to upload a picture.  I think that photos need to to less than 600 kB in size and no more than 600 pixels on the longest side for non-subscribing members (but up to 1MB and 1200 pixels for subscribing members).

Pete.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello again.

I am back home and have brought my M8 to a shop down in Portland for inspection.

The people there said that they cannot open it and there seems to be NO Leica expert in the State of Maine. 

The bottom plate still starts opening maybe 1/8 inch but the little silver tab on the other end does not move.

Please recommend an excellent US Leica technician.  I am pretty isolated up here in Northern New England and need help to connect with someone who has fixed such problems.

Thank you in advance.

Carol-Lynn 

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Hi Carol-Lynn,

Sorry to hear that the Portland shop didn't have any luck either.  I live in the UK but probably the most renowned Leica repairman in the US is Don Goldberg in Oregon, Wisconsin, who's can be contacted at https://www.dagcamera.com/contact.html.  Plenty of members on the forum have used his services and I don't recall a negative comment at all over the years.

Sherry Krauter is in NY and also has an excellent reputation for Leica repairs and she can be contacted at https://www.sherrykrauter.com/store.

Good luck and please let us know what the problem was and how you got on.

Pete.

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