Anyone have problems with screw on VX2100 hood

[Daniel Melius]

Hi,

I had my Sun Glare black hood off my camera and when I went to put it on I noticed the tightener screw somehow got screwed all the way in. I went to loosen it and it would not budge in either direction. I spent about an hour working on this and even took off the small plate that was over top that did not help at all. After confirming from another camera that counter clockwise was in fact the loosen direction, I decided to put plyers on it just to see if I could get it started. Well that snapped the screw in half. Anyone know of a place to buy a replacement screw for this. I don't care if it is the exact same type of tightener or not just as long as it is the same size, whatever that is, and it will still tighten it up on my one camera.

thanks,
Dan

[Daniel Melius]

I believe it is a 1/8 inch thumb screw which shouldn't be that hard to find. My threads that the screw broke in seem to be not stripped.

I did find this site that has 1/8 inch thumb screws but no idea on the tightening screw thread for the VX2100 hood. They have a whole bunch of different kinds of thread of which I know nothing on:

http://www.accuratescrew.com/Catalog...odCat=STHMKNSH

[J. Stephen McDonald]

Originally Posted by Daniel Melius

I believe it is a 1/8 inch thumb screw which shouldn't be that hard to find. My threads that the screw broke in seem to be not stripped.

I did find this site that has 1/8 inch thumb screws but no idea on the tightening screw thread for the VX2100 hood. They have a whole bunch of different kinds of thread of which I know nothing on:

http://www.accuratescrew.com/Catalog...odCat=STHMKNSH

I have good news about this and bad news. First, the good part: You don't really need that tightening screw assembly for the hood to stay in place. The bayonet attachment twists in place and unless you whack the hood on something, it shouldn't come off. The screw is just to keep it from rotating far enough to detach.

The bad news is, that the screw itself has a reverse thread. Even though you rotate it in the standard directions to loosen and tighten the little locking plate, the screw is actually going down into the plate when you turn it counter-clockwise and coming back up when you turn it clockwise. The plate that does the locking, rides up or down on the end of the reverse screw.

I don't understand how the plastic could be so tough, as to cause the screw to break? And did you get the broken end of the screw out of the hole?

If it was my hood, I'd do a re-fit with a standard-direction screw, that was slightly bigger in diameter. I'd use a metal tap of the size and thread for the new screw. First, I'd delicately drill out the pilot hole for the tap to carve the new, larger threads. This assumes that you've removed the old, broken screw. Use a pilot drill a bit smaller than the size listed for the tap, for when it is used to make screw threads in metal. The plastic is weaker and the pilot hole doesn't need to be quite so large and the new threads in the plastic might not be tight enough with a full-sized pilot hole. In fact, you might not even need to drill a pilot hole, if you rotate the tap down into the existing hole. Tap out the threads just as you would in metal. Be careful, as that plastic could crack if you put too much force on it. Then, when you use the new, standard-thread screw, just turn it in the opposite directions you did with the original reverse one.

The trick will be to get the new screw far enough down in the hole in the little plate, to make it work. The screw has to be the exact length and have a head that is wide and thick enough for you to grab when you turn it and to hold tight against the plastic. Or, you could just say screw this whole idea and solve the problem with a couple of little pieces of self-sticking Velcro.

Aren't you glad that this isn't in the lens, itself?

[Daniel Melius]

Actually, this was a brand new camera. I have two other VX2100's that always have the hood on and I never mess with them. This one I took the hood off after trying it on so that I could send the camera in its original box to Greg Winter for another great audio modification for use with the mix pre.

I believe I screwed the screw in with my hand the whole way so that it did not fall off and left the hood sit. When I got my camera back the other day, I went to put the hood on and that thumb screw would not budge in either direction with about an hour's effort of working it in each direction. I then gently applied plyers to it in the correct direction for loosening. It did not take much pressure at all an that tiny 1/8" screw cracked in the middle. I already had the plate off of the front so it was no problem to get it out of the hole and that part turned easy. I believe the problem came with the washer that was inbetween two places. I think it somehow got wedged in between one of the grooves of the screw as one peice of the washer is now completly gone and it is mangled and deformed.

"I don't understand how the plastic could be so tough, as to cause the screw to break? And did you get the broken end of the screw out of the hole?"

The hood is indeed plastic but if you unscrew the plate surrounding where the screw goes in, you would see two metal plates with a metal washer in between. I guess something went wrong with the reverse thread when the screw was the whole way in and it caused it to not be able to be reversed as I did try it in both directions for a long time before I tried using force with it.

[Chris Barcellos]

Not that it helpsd your problem, I have the Vx 2000, but I looked at the pic of 2100, and it appears they moved screw to bottom side Seems like it might be more susceptible to a whack that might jam that screw..