Bought a Canon 814 Autozoom off eBay

[Fifth Beatle]

For $36 bucks. By all accounts a steal. Once I had it shipped, though, I opened up the battery compartment to find massive corrosion. However, I cracked it open, got out the trusty bottle of WD-40, and voila! the motor works again. Except-- only at 12 and 24 frames per second. The previous owner undoubtedly had the thing jam on him (there was a half used roll of KA-II in the chamber) at the 18fps setting. What I'm figuring is- the thing still works at 12 and 24 because they are related speeds, with one being 2x the speed of the other (or one being half speed, whatever).
Is there any way to get the 18fps to work, or will I only get to use 2/3 of the functions on this nice little model?
In other words, has anyone else torn one of these Canon 814's down?
~5B (Steve)
P.S. I just realized, if there was KA-II in this thing, the last person to hold this camera was probably wearing bellbottoms.

[S8 Booster]

Congratiolations with your new cam PB.

Have a few advices for the corrosion stuff in general.

For battery compartments corrosion stuff is best removed with a old fasioned soap/water solution. I do not know the English word for that particular soap but I will find and post it. We simply call it the "Green Soap".

This soap/water mix is chemically opposed to the battery acid, but very kind to most stuff. When the battery compartment is washed (not get this inside the cam) flush/clean with pure water to get rid of it all and let it dry sufficiently (patience).

For the next step I believe that it would be better not to used the WD-40 in advance but there are 2 other products that are just great and that might be worth trying before you try to disassemble the cam:
(suggest you to buy the Maintenance Manual to disassemble it)

CRC Electronics Cleaner
CRC Contact Cleaner
This may be the same product but has changed name. Check it out.
http://www.crcind.com/webapp/commerce/c ... ry=0&bu=10
The whole list.
http://www.crcind.com/webapp/commerce/c ... u=10&/#CLP

Have used the CRCs many times with great results on cellular phones that were dropped in sea/salt water. Usually a "throwaway" case but both recovered. (Rule #1: Disassemble, flush well in fresh waster asap, then dry it in an stove (if electrical/or identical) at 40-50°C for 24h and then use the contact cleaners.)

The CRCs seem to make dirt etc vaporize.

Now the WD-40 may be fine but make sure you do not get it inside the cam at critical parts like film path areas / mirrors etc. Suggest not to use it immedialtely. Try the cam first for a while.

At last.
Do not worry if things do not correct immediately. I have seen stuff recover slowly like over a period of 14 days or so.

Nice recovery

[jessh]

best thing I have found for getting rid of corrosion is vinegar. Alkalin (which is the nasty stuff in alkalin batteries) is a base not an acid so the acidity of the vinegar counteracts it, if you can remove the battery compartment form the camera, pour some vinegar in a bowl and soak it in it the vinegar will desolve all of the nasty junk. then you probably want to rinse it off well with regular water, dry it off well and sand down the contacts if they are rusty. I have a Canon 814 Electronic I am working on, still need to go get the right size screwdriver to get further inside....

In the future it is probably best to keep the WD-40 away from electronics, or optical stuff. The plain old Autozoom has a lot less electronics than the Electronic so probably not too much to worry about as long as you stay away from the electronics, but I believe sewing machine oil(is this the same as 3 in 1?) is better for oiling cameras....

~Jess

[Fifth Beatle]

Hey guys. First of all, thanks for the advice! I never really knew what steps to take or what kinds of chemicals to use on corrosion. (Except for battery terminals on a car- we always use Pepsi-Cola
But, I feel I should explain further- in my haste I kind of forgot to do so. The 814 has a handle that snaps down. When you turn the handle over, ther are two flathead screws holding it together. I simply undid those, took it apart and remover the corroded batteries. The WD-40, I sprayed on a cloth and wiped down the inside where the batteries had left residue. Luckily, most of the electrical wires and the terminal ends were spared, so when I put it back together, and slid new batteries in, it worked.

For some reason, in the back of my mind, I thought I remembered someone telling me that WD-40 was okay to use for that sort of thing. Now, based on your replies, I will be more cautious. All's well that ends well, I suppose.

Oh, and as for 18fps problem, I somehow "fixed" that. What I did was: I knew the camera would work at 12fps and 24fps, so, since the 18fps setting is between those two, I just moved the lever back and forth with the motor running, until it "caught" on the 18 fps. Amazing! Collossal! Fantastic!

Actually...just pure dumb luck. Thanks for replying!
~5B

[S8 Booster]

Fine that you got it going!

Just adding a detail.

Resolving battery corrosion.

My suggestion to get rid of the corrosion was for zinc-carbon batteriers (acid leakage) - while jessh´s suggestion solves alkaline batt leakages/corrsion (base).

So the trick will be:

Base for the acid and
acid for the base,

at modest levels.

RGDS