A Tip for removing a tip

Don’t know whether anyone else has had this problem, but thought I would share how I sorted it out! The other day, the tip of the 2.5mm stereo jack-plug on my cable release came off whilst still in the camera (*istD) socket. It was firmly held by the spring-contact of the socket and so wouldn’t come out. I don’t know if there re any very fine tweezers around or not, but the hole width is very small!

I mounted the camera on a tripod with the socket facing vertically up. I straightened out a paper-clip which was of a size that the wire diameter fitted into the ‘internal-hole’ of the tip. I checked this first by gently poking into release socket. A nearby angle-poise/ torch etc helped with immensely with seeing clearly!

Next I mixed a very small amount of araldite, and dabbed a very small amount on the tip of the wire. VERY CAREFULLY I inserted paper-clip wire centrally into socket and into the ‘tip hole’, whilst ensuring that the clip wire/ araldite did not touch the sides of the camera socket – obviously not wanting to gunge up the socket with glue, or stick the wire into the socket!

Once in the tip-hole, the araldite spread around and allowed the wire to stick to the tip. Again this is a reason to ensure not much glue is used, otherwise the entry of the wire into the tip could push araldite around. I used araldite rapid, and so after a few minutes was able to pull the wire out, and along came the tip with it!

Needless to say that jack-plug is now in the bin!

I offer this as is – and can take no responsibility for gunging up cable release sockets, or guarantee this working in all cases!

Andy

I wondered why I kept seeing cameras with paper clips sticking out of them. Now I know!

You're a brave man with a steady hand.

G

George, more a case of not wantin to fork out for Pentax to do a job that was obviously not going to be a warranty repair!!

Andy