The Happy Saga of My Nikon F2, MD-2 and MB-1

or "how to make battery clips for your nikon motor drive and annoy the guy who owns your local camera shoppe at the same time"

by Kyle Cassidy

(photos with an Olympus 220L digital camera at 320x200 resolution)

Recently I was lucky enough to discover a Nikon F2 complete with MD-2 motor drive and MB-1 battery box. It is a serious beater and once belonged to the Los Angeles Times. It looks like someone has dragged it home behind a truck, or used it to crush a big rock into driveway gravel. With a camera like this around your neck, everybody assumes you know what the hell you're doing and they stand back -- stand back lest the hammering cauchopany of that clanging motor drive -- like a gong! -- blast through the thin membrane of their ear drums and spoon their brains into the air like so much backwash. It was also dang cheap and therefore impossible to turn down for a guy whose been using a kodak hawkeye folding camera as his main instrument for two years. How could I turn down a piece of history like this? What fool would? Who can say the faces who passed before this lens -- Spiro Agnew, one or two of Charlies Angles, some Sanitation workers cleaning up after a horse parade.... Anyway, I get my treasure home and discover that the MB-1 is missing the battery holders. Alas, but who cares -- the camera is so cheap, I can afford to buy new battery holders -- battery holders for everyone in my family: "Mom! Here, have some battery holders! Some for you too sis! Battery holders for the world!" -- I go skipping down the street to my local camera shop. (Actually 40 blocks down the street, and lugging the F2 I am not skipping very quickly by the time I arrive.)

"Hello Mr. Camera-Shop-Man!" I say.

"Hello there yourself, young fella with an F2. What can I do you for?"

"I'd like to buy some battery holders for my MB-1 here."

"Certianly, young fella, and you're in luck! I just happen to have a pair."

"Must be my lucky day!" I whip out my wallet and get ready to spend ten dollars for a good cause.

"They're $100 each -- $200 for the pair."

My wallet siezes like a clam.

"Did you say one hundred dollars?"

"Each!" he says, happily.

"Ex-squeeze me? Is one of us out of our minds?"

"That would be you," he says, "you'd best buy 'em today if you want 'em, cause they won't be here tomorrow. $200 is a good price for a pair of battery clips for that there MB-1."

"Uh, WHAT? That's more than I paid for the whole @#$%!$%ing CAMERA there Joe. Have you been making Dektol martinis?"

"Camera's worth nothin, battery clips is worth everything. You see, Nikon don't make 'em no more. And the folks that did have 'em, usually left 'em in the closet with the battery clips in 'em and the batterys LEAK over the years, you see, and destroys them -- hence their unavialibility on account a ya can't find none of em because there aint any of 'em. They's all ruint by battery acid. I got twenty of them MB-1 battery cases and I can't sell 'em -- NO CLIPS!"

He waves the battery holders at me. I think of smacking him in the side of the head with my F2 and dragging him down to Tiny's Tattoo parlor and getting something obscene tattooed on his forehead but instead, I settle for making a rude gesture and leaving. Two hundred dollars for some rediculous little bits of plastic -- No machine this simple can defeat me.

I trudge 40 blocks back home, open the MB-1 up and peer inside. It's an absurdly simple mechanism -- two (propriatary, of course) prongs stick out in a recessed hole, some grabbers on the clips connect with these and give it juice from five AA batteries on each side.

A post to the Nikon mailing list and a very speedy and informative reply from famed Nikkoner Michael C. Liu:

"The MD-2 and MD-1 both eat 15V DC at 0.4A. J.D. Cooper's _Nikon-Nikkormat Handbook_ states that "other DC sources, less than 15V, can also be utilized." I take this to mean that the motors in the MD-2 are limited by power, not voltage; hence with 10 1.2V standard "AA" NiCds, the total draw would be 0.5A, so your batteries wouldn't last as long, but would still be useable."

So, with this in mind, I go to Radio Shack and buy a pair of battery holders. They cost $2.50 each and hold four AA's. Connecting the battery holders to the recessed posts with a set of alligator clips, i am overjoyed to hear a loud "kushwink"ing noise when I press the shutter release, the motor drive pounds to life. Of course, I can't run around with the batteries allegator clipped to the motor drive, I need something more perminant. I fiddle with wires for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out how to connect the battery holders with the recessed posts -- I can't make anything grab ahold of the posts without soldering, and I'm not sure I want to do that yet -- then I realize I"m trying too hard. I wad up two small balls of tin-foil and place them on the top of the battery holders and slide it into the MB-1 -- it makes contact perfectly, but the battery holder is about a sixteenth of an inch too short. An index card torn into quarters and folded wedges the holder in very snugly.

	When you slide the battery holders in, the balls of tinfoil will actually be pierced by the tines inside the MB-1 and make a rather snug fit.
	Closeup of the folded index card.

I closed up the battery doors and more than two 100 foot bulk rolls of  Tri-X later, it's still going strong. Largely due to recent advances in battery technology which allow batteries to hold a charge significantly longer than those at the time the MB-1 was designed.

I thought of taking my design down to the local camera shoppe, but I think I'll just let 'em suffer.

Thanks to everyone on the Nikon mailing list, especially Michael Liu and Neal Anderson, who was very helpfull in finding replacement NICAD batteries for the MN-1 nicad packs that go with the MB-1:

Several years ago I replaced the cells in my MB-1's NICAD holders. First, DON'T THROW AWAY YOUR OLD MN-1's!. I ordered replacement NICAD stacks from: Engineering Assemblies & Components 5204 Green's Dairy Road Raleigh, NC 27604 (I don't have their phone #) You could probably get what you need from other battery assemblers. Ask for two: "Varta V280R 7.2 volt stack (6 cells) with tabs", or equivalent. This is a stack of 6 cells soldered together and shrink-wrapped, with solder tabs on each end. They are WAY cheaper than $100 each! You remove the four small screws to remove the caps on the MN-1's. The NICAD stack is soldered to two wires which are soldered to the connector terminals. Just unsolder the wires from the old stack and solder them to the new, being careful of polarity. Reinstall in the MN-1, being careful not to short-out or crimp the wires. Charge before using.