Leica MP Light Meter repair service?

[Huss]

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I dunno.  If someone is buying a 40 year old camera, and is worried about serviceability, perhaps they should not be buying a 40 year old camera?

For all those who say why buy a new Leica when you can buy an old one for a fraction of the price, there is your answer.

[raizans]

Yes, the M6 meter spare parts are disappearing without a trace, and the people asking where to get their M6 meter repaired are Russian bots. Cameraworks is developing replacement meter parts for the sheer fun of it. There’s a space-time anomaly surrounding M6 meters so none of them will break in the future.

[Huss]

15 minutes ago, raizans said:

There’s a space-time anomaly surrounding M6 meters so none of them will break in the future.

Problem solved.

[Anbaric]

40? That's a spring chicken in Leica years. You can get that dim rangefinder serviced on a 90 year old Leica because somebody has gone to the trouble of making new beam splitters. I'm just glad that there are people out there making this sort of thing possible for one brand at least. High quality film cameras in general are a diminishing resource.

[RayD28]

My Olympus OM-2, which has both manual metering using a match stick (like an M5) and aperture preferred automatic metering (like an M7), works like a charm.  It has never needed repair.  I bought it new in 1977.  Forty-five years ago.  Damn, I'm old!  

[Huss]

6 hours ago, RayD28 said:

My Olympus OM-2, which has both manual metering using a match stick (like an M5) and aperture preferred automatic metering (like an M7), works like a charm.  It has never needed repair.  I bought it new in 1977.  Forty-five years ago.  Damn, I'm old!  

Which reinforces my belief that the M5 and M7 are the greatest Leicas ever made.

[Matlock]

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4 hours ago, Huss said:

Which reinforces my belief that the M5 and M7 are the greatest Leicas ever made.

Well said, I have both.

[Mikep996]

 I bought an M7 back in the day but sold it about 6 months later, went back to using my 1984 M6.  For some reason I just didn't get on with the 7; not sure why.  I think it was that overly-large shutter speed dial that turned the wrong way!  😂

 

[Danner]

These threads tend to exaggerate the likelihood of having M6 Classic and M6TTL meter problem, so I'll simply say...

My 1985 and 1987 M6 classics are both going strong, meters working perfectly, always have.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Danner

[Huss]

2 hours ago, Danner said:

These threads tend to exaggerate the likelihood of having M6 Classic and M6TTL meter problem, so I'll simply say...

My 1985 and 1987 M6 classics are both going strong, meters working perfectly, always have.

I agree.  Too many ‘what if?’ worries in life, when none of us really knows what tomorrow may bring!

[jaybeuff]

I work in R&D and build custom electronic pcbs, among other interactive art / tech work and I guarantee the reason why meters cannot be repaired is that components have likely been deprecated / retired since 1980s and 90s by manfacturers.  Most components have replacements, but often have totally different pinouts (think electrical layout) and likely requried components. Most likely can be repaired by any skilled electronics technician but maybe not within the space or design constraints of the M6 body itself without considerable work-hours.

 

Most components today still exist.  Resistors, capacitors, diodes, and many others are simple building blocks.  The cpu / mcu (microcontroller unit) and other custom chips are what get deprecated / retired by manufacturers.  That and likely the firmware (flashed software that operates the hardware) itself for the specific chips used may no longer exist or the tools needed to program them may not run easily on modern machines.

I spoke to DAG about much of this a few weeks back and he said the main failures he's seen with M6's happened with early batch M6 classics and very few he's seen from M6TTL cameras.  He seems to think based on his anecdotal evidence that most failure prone meters have already been repaired at this point. 

As many have mentioned the latest MP meter is a modern hardware device that gets programmed by Leica at their factories before the cameras are assembled.   
 

Edited December 14, 2022 by jaybeuff

[andrew01]

On 12/14/2022 at 4:40 AM, jaybeuff said:

I work in R&D and build custom electronic pcbs, among other interactive art / tech work and I guarantee the reason why meters cannot be repaired is that components have likely been deprecated / retired since 1980s and 90s by manfacturers.  Most components have replacements, but often have totally different pinouts (think electrical layout) and likely requried components. Most likely can be repaired by any skilled electronics technician but maybe not within the space or design constraints of the M6 body itself without considerable work-hours.

 

Most components today still exist.  Resistors, capacitors, diodes, and many others are simple building blocks.  The cpu / mcu (microcontroller unit) and other custom chips are what get deprecated / retired by manufacturers.  That and likely the firmware (flashed software that operates the hardware) itself for the specific chips used may no longer exist or the tools needed to program them may not run easily on modern machines.

I spoke to DAG about much of this a few weeks back and he said the main failures he's seen with M6's happened with early batch M6 classics and very few he's seen from M6TTL cameras.  He seems to think based on his anecdotal evidence that most failure prone meters have already been repaired at this point. 

As many have mentioned the latest MP meter is a modern hardware device that gets programmed by Leica at their factories before the cameras are assembled.   
 

 

Thanks. In your opinion, which parts on the board are most likely to fail due to old age?  I would have thought the silicon chip would be relatively low risk, and that capacitors would be high risk.