The Olympus T20 flash is both compact and complex in both design and function. All that aside it was for sale at a very low price ($4.19 at Value Village), partially because the battery compartment was firmly glued shut.
At that price I was happy to try to get it open. I have had some luck in getting battery covers off leaking batteries.
I was successful, but it took some time. I have a small hammer that has a rubber face and a hard plastic face on opposite ends of the small head. I alternated angled blows with the rubber face (about 30 degrees to the direction I wanted the cover to slide) with hard taps of the hard plastic face directly down on the edges of the cover. I had to avoid the ridged area molded into the cover with the sharp taps so I didn’t mar the ridges.
I was patient and kept tapping. I tried running a knife edge down any exposed joints. This battery cover is one of the most convoluted I have met, with interfering ridges and edges.
Finally I tried soaking a cotton tipped swab in some water and ran that around the battery cover’s edges. It only took doing this twice, alternated with the tapping and gentle prying of the cover, to get the cover off.
It was a horror show under the cover. The two AA batteries have to be squeezed into the recess in order or they don’t fit. Prying them out when they are almost cemented in place took some doing. Then the real work began of cleaning up the compartment. I used some sharp edged tools to pry the leakage deposits off the smooth plastic and from around the metal contact tabs.
A little wiping with cotton swabs, some wipes with paper towel and soon the compartment seemed cleaned up enough to try batteries.
I was aware mixing water with high voltage is a dangerous combination, so the cotton swabs were damp but not soaked.
The unit hummed when turned on and after some tense seconds more than should be normal the ready light fired up. Taking longer to fire up initially is normal in electronic flash that haven’t been used for years.
The T20 flash was made to work with the Off-The-Film sensor on the Olympus OM-2. It is quite unique that the plate that has conventional calculator scales on one side can be flipped to show no calculator tables at all.
The calculator side has a top scale with ASA values and a middle scale that has distances in meters along the top and two “auto” diamonds to show the f/stops (in the middle) used for the two auto ranges. If you are using the manual setting you can use the scales to figure out what to set your camera f/stop to for the distance between the flash and the subject. The bottom of the display has a slider with the manual and the two auto positions. At the bottom right of the card is a black on black button that you depress to pop the card to the right to remove it. The T20 does not tilt or swivel, but could be used on an accessory handle.
The part of the back that stays has an auto-check light, a charge(d) light and the on/off switch.
The location of the sensor on the front of the flash is really clever. Located in the middle of the “O” in Olympus, many would not even realize it was there!
I wish the story had a happy ending. Unfortunately the flash will not fire. I dove even deeper into the flash—all you have to do is remove on screw in the battery compartment—but found the guts exposed were way beyond my humble talents. While giving up sounds easy enough, I became occupied with a single flat spring bent at a right angle that flew away while I was trying to get the two sides of the flash back together. I had to tear half the room apart to find the little blighter (it turned out it had bounced right back at me and was hiding under my chair). I also found to my amazement they have a repair manual on the internet. While detailed and instructive I still don’t know how to get into the flash foot from on top. I suspect the foot’s contacts because the outside of the foot had some kind of grease on it I had noticed while trying to get the battery compartment open. The exposed innards also had some gunk.
The flash foot is more complicated than most feet you will ever meet too. Besides the three contacts on the flat foot and the two side contacts there is a tiny plastic spring-loaded tab that may have electrical switch functions in addition to whatever locking-the-foot-in-place-on-the-shoe function it may have.
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