the Insta' Jam Troubleshooting - Modding an Ilford Sportsman C Instant

I wanted to know why my Ilford Sportsman C Instant jammed. I still don't know, but now it works.

Problem

As you can see I applied a dramatic modification to my camera. It's a very simple camera that takes instamatic film cassettes and it displayed a phenomenon that I'd encountered in one of the few other instamatic cameras that I'd tried: The winder lever jammed and/or the spool-winder (for the film cassette) didn't engage with the cassette properly for film to be wound.

So I did what any sane person... wouldn't do. I removed the top cover to see if I could discover what caused the jamming. After some time I saw a lever that engaged with a cogwheel that stopped it from turning. When I pushed the lever to the side it stuck in another position with a click. Then I could wind the lever and push the exposure button. After which the lever return to engage the cogwheel.

Hmm... How this happened and why it couldn't be undone from just using the camera with a cassette loaded I still couldn't figure out. But "cameras need excercise" is my motto. The camera needed some help to expose photos again. Hence I made the intervention pictured:

Tie a string to the engaging lever to be manually pulled every time I want to wind the film on.

In a later post you will get to see the photos from the roll I exposed with the camera.

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