Thanks for that info! Being a cheapskate I wouldn't consider them because of the cost, but now I have justification.

The MX never required mercury cells, IIRC; indeed the Spotmatics will work fine with silver oxide cells if they physically fit, since the Spotties use a bridge circuit metering system, which is tolerant of voltage variations. I've always used silver oxide because of their longer life.

I have three MXs. One I bought used over 20 years ago, and a really rough example bought for parts (perhaps) and a lovely black example. The oldest worked well for many years until it started eating cells, a set every one month or so. Before cell life was over a year. A local supposedly good shop worked on it - I told them to keep it long enough (a month or so) to see if they'd found the problem, no joy. The Black Beauty has the same problem. I've removed the base plates to check the wind lever switch, it does interrupt the circuit. Yes, I used a digital VOM. I guess a trip to Eric in Tennessee is the next step, perhaps send all three with the rough one as a donor for Eric's use.
BTW, for those contemplating the winder, be careful with the little toothed wheel securing the battery compartment cover. From what I can see it would be all to easy to strip the threads in the winder body, or lose the tiny cover itself. Bad design by Pentax, IMHO.
I like the MX. It is fast to use (although the stiff shutter dial is a downer) and the meter is visible in bad light. With a fast 50 or wide angle and the winder it is a fine street camera, but I'd like the meter to work more than a few weeks.

Many thanks for the comments and suggestions. Just today it did its "thing" and I continued shooting even though the "meter" showed no charge. Things went well; the "session" was about 30 minutes - Grandson Gabriel's third birthday - and the camera was on the entire time. Just now I turned it on and it indicates full charge.

As far as live view is concerned I rarely ever use it. I think I'll use only one battery at a time for a while and see if correlates with a particular battery.

And I'll shoot more with my new-to-me Nikon S2. No batteries, manual focusing film rangefinder. Bring out the exposure meter and the BW film and get back to basics.

Hello -

I have a K 5 and second battery grip with which I am generally very happy. It does have a little oddity; with both batteries having a reasonable level of charge, the battery indicator will fairly rapidly show a dropping charge. If I turn the camera off, and then back on full charge is indicated. I have of course the Pentax original battery and three aftermarket Wasabi units. I really can't determine whether this behavior is unique to any particular set of batteries.

Anyone else experienced this?

Glad to see this thread! My recently acquired full 110 kit has the same problem with the camera. Now if I can get the winder battery cover fixed or replaced or....

The 1/60 second sync speed does make fill flash outdoors difficult, since ghost images may well be evident. Using neutral density filters or a really slow film might be a solution.

Gorgeous! There might be a cottage industry here for us Pentax LX fanatics......

And I thought I'd done well getting a really clean KX with a spotless 50mm f1.4 for under $100! Excellent Good!

To me the only flaw with the KX (other than lacking motor drive, interchangeable screens and prisms, etc, etc,) is that the meter switch is combined with the rapid wind lever. Hardly a deal breaker

Wouldn't it have been nice had Pentax included a exposure lock button on the LX? What were they thinking??

It was some time before I winkled out the viewfinder release doubling as a meter switch. Makes using the winder much easier