Nikon R10 motor issue?

Danny Stanford · June 15, 2015

I recently acquired a Nikon R10 that would not run at all. Battery compartment was clean as a whistle though and when I put batteries in, I found out why. The batteries got extremely hot and would have probably exploded had I left them in. I opened it up and found there was a piece of metal from the casing bent against the circuit board that caused the short circuit. I fixed that and the batteries now test fine and don't try to explode. The only problem is, the motor may have some sort of problem, cause when I depress the trigger, I hear a click where by a switch releases the motor to turn, but it won't turn unless I start it up by giving the gears a slight push. Then it runs steady until I let off the trigger. But I have to do that every time. Is the motor worn out, or is it possibly something else?

Oh and if anyone is thinking of ripping the leatherette off their R10/R8 to open it up, think again. You can leave the leatherette in tact if you know where the screws are underneath it. You can punch through it in those places only instead of ripping the whole thing off. You can hardly tell anything was done to it on mine. Now it just looks like the screws were supposed to be on the outside. I can help anyone who wants to do this by showing you where to look for the screws. You can push on the leatherette with a screwdriver and find them pretty easily. I cheated by taking a wrecked one that I bought for 3 bucks at a yard sale and dismantled it first. I highly recommend having a shitty inoperable version of your camera around to experiment on. Don't do any dismantling or poking around in the good one till you've done it on a busted one. They can be found for almost nothing and they work great for parts. The 3 dollar one I got came with a remote switch, filter key, and several filters that were worth more than what I paid by themselves.

Josh Gladstone · June 15, 2015

Very interesting. Please post a photo of where the screws are located if you can. I've got an R10 too, and that will probably come in handy in the future.

I'm not sure whether or the camera needs to be lubricated or not, but if it does, that could be the culprit? But someone more versed in R10 repair is going to have to chime in to give you a more definitive answer.

Danny Stanford · June 15, 2015

Yeah, I'll post pics when I get an opportunity. I assume the screws at similarly placed on the R8, but I haven't tried it out yet.

Andries Molenaar · June 16, 2015

Off factory the screw-openings are covered with thin metal plates to keep the leatheratte from sinking into the screwhead cups. Do you penetrate these plates too?

Danny Stanford · June 16, 2015

Yeah, it's basically like aluminum tape over the screw and it's only on one screw on the top left. I'll post a pic as soon as I'm able. There are 5 screws on the panel and one screw on the exposure dial that will have to be removed. There are 3 panel screws on the bottom, one on the top left, and one on the top right. There is an aluminum plate over the screw on the exposure dial that you will have to be removed. I drilled a small hole in it so I can access it later without having to remove the cover each time.

Andries Molenaar · June 16, 2015

The metal plates are over all panelscrews and certainly thicker than foil. Cameras which have been opened before often aren't put together too neatly. Especially not later on when NIKON wasn't repairing them any longer.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Andries Molenaar

Danny Stanford · June 16, 2015

Your mileage may vary as I'm sure there are differences in production along the way, but I've dismantled three of them and they all only had one very thin piece of aluminum over one screw on that side (the other side has two).