SEI Photomater repair

[Greg]

Have used my SEI Photometer for years. Everything breaks at some point, so over the years have picked up several broken SEIs at bargain prices for their parts. Well my original SEI Photometer finally bit the dust. Has anyone out there attempted to work on their own SEI? Or should I just ship everything to a repair service/person, in which case does anyone know of someone who offers SEI repair services?

thanks
Greg

[DennisD]

I'm sorry I cannot recommend anyone.
I own several SEIs myself and they are excellent meters if you know how to use them.
Even better if you can repair them !

The only advice I can offer...
Make sure the person / company you chose really knows the meter and has worked on many before.

Taking the head apart is challenging and the internals are easy to damage.
Parts are impossible to get, so you're fortunate to have parts.

[David Lindquist]

Two or three years ago I asked George Milton at Quality Light-Metric if he worked on these and he said he did not as parts were no longer available. Posting this partly to save anyone else from taking the time to suggest this great resource for light meter repair as a possibility.
David

[John Layton]

I took mine somewhat apart recently...so compelling in principle that I so wish I could fix it! Anybody know what Huw Finney is up to?

[Steve Goldstein]

I don't know how useful these will be, but I had them bookmarked...

http://www.robertsuomala.com/5.html

http://www.huwswebthing.talktalk.net/sei.htm

[Greg]

Thanks for those 2 URLs. Looks like I will try fixing my SEI in the near future.

Greg

[MrFujicaman]

Greg...I would send the one you think is the best to QLM along with the ones you consider "parts" and tell them to see how many working ones they can make out of them.

[Greg]

Many thanks for the advice. Will call (Google search didn't turn up a website) them and send all my broken SEIs to Quality Light Metric and most probably they can put together 2 working SEIs for me in the end. Gratefully will chicken out from repairing them myself.

Greg

[David Lindquist]

Quality Light Metric famously doesn't have a website.

That will be great if they can put together a working SEI for you. These are wonderful instruments.
David

[Greg]

Follow-up this SEI repair post.

Thanks to those who led me to sites covering the SEI. Thought I had visited them all but was quite wrong.

Talked to George Milton at Quality Light-Metric. He told me "Congratulations you have a Museum piece the Ansel Adams used". Told me there is a small selenium cell inside the meter (used to standardize the brightness of the internal reference source) that is no longer made and not available.

Two individuals had websites covering the SEI and "offered repair services". No response to my Emails from either of them

Finally was able to purchase a working SEI... well actually works most of the time. Missing a screw that should be easy to replace.

Have collected a number of non-working SEIs over the years and some time in the near future will get one or two of them working again. Was able to download and print out pretty detailed repair instructions.

In 1981, corresponded with Harry DeRahm (printer for Ansel I believe) about the SEI: In his words... "The only answer is to try to develop an attitude of tolerance and cheerfulness, and to remember the ironic fact the the perfection which can be drawn from within the depths of the human being can never be found in a machine."