HardwareGuy

Hello.
Would anyone out there happen to have a battery compartment cover for a classic Olympus OM1n to sell?
My dad gave me this camera long ago, and I am attempting to "resurrect" it.
Nice camera, mint condition, but hard to check it out without the battery cover.
Please let me know your price.
Thanks.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

Check out the ones that show up in this eBay search . . .

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xolympus+om1+battery+cover+cap.TRS0&_nkw=olympus+om1+battery+cover+cap&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=olympus+omq+battery+cover+cap

Stan

rwilson1942 Loc: Houston, TX

I have a dead OM10. It looks like it is the same cover.
PM me your address and I'll mail it to you, no charge.
Rick

leftj Loc: Texas

Have you tried eBay?

Kuzano

Difficult to find. Olympus changed all the bottom plates and covers with every model of the OM camera's.

Jon Hermanson (zuiko.com) still rebuilds all the OM models, including calibrating the meter to currently available batteries. The OM-1 series used the NLA (illegal now in the US) mercury batteries for the meter only. All other functions are manual override.

Even Jon is often out of battery caps for many models. I buy old parts cameras or bottom plates from ebay for the caps (battery and motor drive). You can often buy a broken OM-1 for less than a battery cap.

There are also workarounds for the meter batteries. Actually quite a few, including cheating the system by setting the ASA to compensate. If your camera is a black top and bottom plate, you can resolve one slight issue for contact on the batteries by using the silver battery caps. The black painted caps do not make contact well. I use the currently available Wein Cell MBR625 which has the same voltage as the original Mercury battery which was 1.35 volts. The Wein Cell is 1.4-close enough. However the life of a Wein Cell is not long. Alkaline 1.5 are incorrect and fallible on the meter. They have a dropping voltage curve over their life. So they are never quite correct. The batteries for the OM-2 and later are currently available in most battery selling locations, in silver oxide and lithium. (357 and SR44 which do not fit the OM-1 battery space unless Jon has calibrated the meter)

Good luck, it's a real hunt but well worth it for a fairly remarkable classic camera. It's a great manual camera, and if you don't want to work with the internal battery solutions, it works just fine with a handheld meter, transposing settings to the lens. The shutter speed ring around the base of the lens is considered one of the best possible locations by many who know the camera. Cradling the lens in one hand, you can set the shutter speed on the fly, viewing the new speed in the viewfinder information panel.

NOTE: The first 500 or so OM-1 camera's produced and sold by Olympus were actually branded M1 on the top cover. Leica complained and the name of the camera was changed to OM-1. Very often when you look for an Olympus OM-1 on eBay, you find the original M1. More often than you might think. The sell for a bit more, and anyone who can service the OM-1 can service the M1.

HardwareGuy

Thank you for the detailed information. It never ceases to amaze me that few things in life have a "simple answer".
Regards.

Kuzano

Particulary on UHH. I tend to be a bit verbose, but interestingly here on UHH, I find many far more verbose in their posts.