Polaroid 405 - stuck roller?

[Francesco Gallarotti]

I purchased a used polaroid 405 back and when I inspected it I noticed that the top most roller is free to rotate very easily, very smooth in its movement, while the bottom one rotates only if I apply certain pressure. It feels "very tight"... not sure how to describe it in English...
Is this expected? Should one of the rollers feel different than the other?
Please advise,
Thanks,
F.

[douglas antonio]

francesco,

i believe it is meant to be like that. mine are different as well. i have not used it so far, since i had the 4x5 545 before.

[Peter K]

The lower roller is mounted in a different bearing to avoid the filmpack is pulled-out to fast to ensure the high-viscoseous developer will be spread uniform.

[Gordon Moat]

Sounds exactly correct. The only things to avoid are burrs on the rollers, or excessive build-up of chemical residue. I clean the rollers on all my instant film holders after each pack, and I have never had a problem with any of them.

Replacement rollers are available at major camera dealers. While not cheap, if you did get a damaged roller, you could replace them as one part. On nearly all the holders, the roller assembly comes out as a unit to make cleaning easier. You should also clean the door on the holder every once in a while.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[Ash]

I think you should be fine.

My fuji pack film holder is similar.

The worst issue I had was a bit of the plastic from between each sheet got lodged in the rollers. This meant the black leader to pull out and process the sheet didn't travel to the correct point. Instead of going between the rollers it came out where the numbered tabs are. I had to carefully open the back and assess the situation, remove the loose plastic, hand-feed the black tab through the rollers and close the back.

This was halfway through a pack. The pack was very much out of date so I don't blame Fuji at all. The stuff still works 4 years after it went out of date so I'm not complaining.


So yea, beware of expired film, but don't worry about your rollers.

[Francesco Gallarotti]

Thank you all for your feedback.
I did pay much attention to cleaning it inside/out, especially the rollers since initially the bottom roller wasn't moving at all due to some residue stuck on one side. I cleaned it carefully and now they move as I reported, so I think it should be good to be used.
I don't have a camera to test it yet, else I wouldn't have asked here.
thank you all for your quick help!

Francesco