Hi,
Amazing! The 505 arrived yesterday. I wasn't expecting the Postal Service to deliver it until later in the week. As I say, amazing!
I couldn't resist. I pulled the top cover off to find out what had happened to the read command dial.
The switch is mounted below a metal plate under the top cover, so further disassembly would be required to get at it. However, removal of the plastic top cover was enough to allow the dial knob to fall out. Now, I can see what went wrong.
The dial knob is made of plastic with a shaft about an inch long. It passes through the metal top plate to the dial switch just below. It is retained with a small machine screw that passes from the underside of the switch into the shaft. The plastic shaft has fractured right at the end of the machine screw, which is about 2/3 of the length up the shaft.
There is a dent on the dial knob itself that I think was caused by an impact. I bet a box of donuts that the impact partially fractured the shaft, and the fracture has been slowly growing for some time. Of course, at some point, the poor thing has to give up the ghost.
That apparently occured while Kiu was checking out the unit. There is no way that the knob can move the switch in its present state. There's no fix short of a new dial knob. I don't even think that a sonic weld would be strong enough to hold together. I suspect that the switch itself is still good, so one day when we get another, more damaged parts doner, this one can be brought back to life again.
Oh, the the crack in the front cover near the finger dial is exactly like the one on my E2. Same place, same path, same length. My 565 has one following the same path, but only about half as long. Well, it's a newer unit. I suspect in time it'll grow to the same length.
Obviously there's an internal strain in the plastic at this point, which the crack relieves. This is fairly common in thermoplastics when one designs compound curve areas, so I wouldn't be surprised to find a lot of these units cracked in the same way.
So, I did the easy thing (and I haven't even *got* one of those 'easy' buttons!) and removed the power switch/shutter button assembly and stuck it into my E2.
Oh, and there will be a *lot* of photos of the insides of this thing when I get around to that wintertime project. The top side of the camera is just packed with little printed wire boards (PWB's) connected by flex films. I can hardly wait to try deciphering what all the parts do.
Stan