Does anyone else have trouble getting the battery cover unscrewed like i do? are there any tips to getting it off without using pliers?

-- grant (g4lamos@yahoo.com), February 06, 2001

Answers

Grant I have heard the battery cover from the Leica R models has a slot which you can screw on and off with a coin. Should be available from Leica or a dealer. Fits the M6.

-- Steve LeHuray (icommag@toad.net), February 06, 2001.

I usually have the opposite problem ... it become loose on my M6TTL all the time. But when it get snug-jammed, I find I can always loosen it by putting my thumbs on opposite sides of it and pushing down and in the appropriate direction to unscrew it.

Godfrey

-- Godfrey DiGiorgi (ramarren@bayarea.net), February 06, 2001.

The battery cover for the R cameras has a silver finish. Leica makes a black battery cover for the M6 with coin slot. The part number is 442-299-805-009. They make them in batches, so if you want one, and they are not in stock, backorder it.

Cheers

-- John Collier (jbcollier@home.com), February 06, 2001.

Grant,

After years of Japanese SLR use, I was surprised by the lack of though on the battery cover when I got my M6. I have been using my Leatherman tool's needle nose pliers, at a very shallow angle. It works but I have a brass colored ring showing through the cover. One of my Leica books shows that the author replaced it with R series cover and I will do the same when mine looses all of the ridges, and the pliers can't grip.

BTW, before I used the pliers to install the cover, Mine also came loose. My first use of the pliers was to tighten it, not remove it. Of course, once it was tight, it wasn't coming off without the tool.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), February 06, 2001.

Place the pad of your thumb flat against the battery cover and press hard against the cover as you turn your thumb to the left. If you don't get enough friction to do it this way, cut the thumb off a rubber kitchen glove and try again, but I doubt that will be necessary. Reverse the operation to tighten. I've never had a problem with tightening or losening the OEM cover using this method, for all the years I've owned M6's and through all the M6's (4 altogether)I've owned.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 06, 2001.

Try the flat side of a large eraser (the pink rhomboid kind) - works like a champ!

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), February 06, 2001.

What's a rhomboid? We only have bluejays and cardinals here.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), February 06, 2001.

C'mon, Bob, you should know that. ROM-boy-ed: it's when you go out and the new ROM version of that Summicron-R. When you see the price and say "...boy!" you know you've been "ROM-boy-ed".

-- Ken Shipman (kennyshipman@aol.com), February 06, 2001.

To Bob and Kenny,

Per http://www.dictionary.com : rhom-boid: A parallelogram with unequal adjacent sides. I guess Bob and Kenney have forgotten what they "learnt" in the 3rd grade!

{o} Jack

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), February 07, 2001.

Thanks. My day is complete.

-- Ken Shipman (kennyshipman@aol.com), February 07, 2001.

I had a machinist make me up a couple of covers with a screwdriver blade-like protrusion which works pretty well. It cost me, but maybe not as much as the leica one! I asked my local dealer about the R6 etc. covers and he said they didn't fit. He was adamant. And wrong, obviously!

Rob.

-- Robert Appleby (laintal@tin.it), February 07, 2001.

The R6 cover is the most un-Leica-like design I have ever seen. The thing has a *hole* in it! I replaced my R6 and 6.2 covers with M6 covers, which seal much more effectively.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 07, 2001.

I like the hole in the R6 battery cover. It lets the water out.

-- Ken Shipman (kennyshipman@aol.com), February 07, 2001.

Yeah well--I received my M6 today and was going through the manual. I tried my battery cover and couldn't budge it. I did succeed with pliers in scratching the cover and loosening it. I had to use my black felt pen sharpie to "paint" over the scratches. Now I barely thread the darned cover finger tight and will hope for the best.

Poor design.

David S Smith

-- David Smith (dssmith3@rmci.net), March 02, 2001.