Topic: RIP Konica Big Mini

[imagesfrugales]

It was the 3rd one that just died in my hands with always the same fault: a broken PCB connector cable from the rear panel.
Now the feature-packed little black beauty only shoots in auto-everything mode and that's not acceptable for me.

This last one is a BM 302, probably the latest make of the series with even improved features and I hoped they would have improved the cable to. But they didn't.

I've had pretty much different p+s cams, including the legendary Yashica T4/T5 that I owned for a few months. But the Big Minis were by far the best and not so heavily overpriced like some otherwise clearly inferiour competitors.

RIP and leave me alone, you ungreateful concubine!

[Ezzie]

Pain in the butt that they didn't think of a better solution than a ribbon cable to the rear panel. It is just bound to fail. Same as the Fuji GA645Zi I was long considering buying, but opted for a GA645Wi instead with the LCD on the top panel instead. Infinitely more reliable.

[Francois]

Since the camera is essentially dead, it might be worth taking it apart and replacing the internal plastic ribbon for a decent quality externally mounted wire ribbon.

[imagesfrugales]

Since the camera is essentially dead, it might be worth taking it apart and replacing the internal plastic ribbon for a decent quality externally mounted wire ribbon.

Looks like 30 connections on a 1.5 cm wide flexible pcb. No chance at all imo.

[02Pilot]

If you like the lens, rip it out and hack it into some other mount.

[Francois]

Old Russian ltm mount lenses are nearly always a good start for this.

[02Pilot]

Old Russian ltm mount lenses are nearly always a good start for this.

Yes. Yes they are.

[Ezzie]

The Minilux evidently suffers from some other severe and common fault. The lens is popular with the Leica M crowd who get them converted in Japan. Evidently a cheaper alternative to a  proper M-Summarit. Maybe the Konica lens is good enough for such a conversion? Konica did in fact make M-mount lenses proper too, I have the M-Hexanon 90/2.8. A very nice lens..

[jojonas~]

did you say you had several that broke now? you can convert one to leica screw mount and for the other two buy a recesky and you'll have a TLR with 35mm 3.5 lenses B-)

(this was actually something I was pondering on when I had two broken olympus mju cameras at the same time)

[Francois]

That's one of the cheaper options...

[imagesfrugales]

Thanks for the inspiration. Unfortuately I threw the other 2 broken ones away.

But - what a coincident - last night I saw and won an auction of 3(!) Konica A4 for less than 10 Eur. I couldn't resist. 1 shall be broken and the other 2 working. The A4 is the predecessor of the BMs, also with a cable to the rear panel but with less functions. If they also will break I have some more lenses to experiment with. The idea of a TLR is very charming.