Faultfinding on 1100D

[Gina]

Anyone who's been watching my thread on cooling the above camera will know I am having a problem with it (viz. "don't work no more!!", it's "lying at the bottom of it's cage with it's legs in the air", "it's fallen off it's perch", etc. etc... giving it the "kiss of life"... ) and that I've bought another body (second hand this time so cheaper) to carry on imaging while I fault find on my first one. If I do manage to get this one working I will have the no.2 body for widefield use.

I have been checking the power first and there is 7.64v on the power supply to the main board with the battery in but without it's door closed and with the on/off switch OFF. This rather surprised me as I expected the power/flash board by the battery compartment to control the main power supply.

[Gina]

Why oh why can't I stop while I'm ahead??? I had a working camera after doing the filter removal mod and putting it all back together. But no, I had to try to be too clever and do the cooling mod too!

Now I'm loathe to even try the filter mod on body no.2! I won't be doing it for a while anyway. I had a successful session tonight with a 135mm FL lens attached to body no.2 Many rather small images of M42 at various exposures up to 30s @ ISO 6400. All ready to feed into DSS tomorrow.

[DIYASTRO]

Gina,

We push ahead because that is what gives us progress. I do feel for you I have had my moments with various electronic projects its just that no one has ever witnessed /published mine!

You will find solutions, when you least expect it usualy.

Is it possible to use your filter removed section on your new camera (a swop over) save you having to go through the motions so to speak.

Let us know how you solve it all because we all know that you will in the end!

Kind regards

Boyd

[Ptarmigan]

Why oh why can't I stop while I'm ahead??? I had a working camera after doing the filter removal mod and putting it all back together.

Yes, I know the feeling !

I folowed your thread with great interest and was so pleased to see that you had a working mod. even after that upset with the torn ribbon which only rendered the viewfinder? inoperable ( oh, and an unexpected family of kittens ! )

But I have missed out (lost the thread) on the further tribulations, what happened(where) next, I saw your test images with the (expected sans filter) white balance etc. which looked promising but then I see you are reporting much doom ! what went wrong after that ?

Malcolm.

[Auntystatic]

Hi Gina, sorry to hear your having more problems, one of my ribbon cables shed its small plastic backing and would not stay in place, I used a small piece cut from my microsoft winxp licence sticker to replace it, held in like a charm. Your right about the peg on the battery door, all canon dslr's won't allow power on without the door closed.

Hope yours gets sorted soon.

[George]

Gina, I haven't been following your previous thread but if you need spare parts drop Lehmanns an email with what you need. Ive used them in the past and they are very reasonable.

[Gina]

Thank you all very much for your replies - it's a great comfort

[Gina]

Gina,

We push ahead because that is what gives us progress. I do feel for you I have had my moments with various electronic projects its just that no one has ever witnessed /published mine!

Thank you for that Yes, you're right.

You will find solutions, when you least expect it usualy.

Yes, I'm hoping so.

Is it possible to use your filter removed section on your new camera (a swop over) save you having to go through the motions so to speak.

Yes, this is what I'm expecting to do. Probably after I get a fair bit of use out of the unmodified camera and when I recover my courage

Let us know how you solve it all because we all know that you will in the end!

Kind regards

Boyd

Yes, will do. That you for your confidence in me

[Gina]

Yes, I know the feeling !

I folowed your thread with great interest and was so pleased to see that you had a working mod. even after that upset with the torn ribbon which only rendered the viewfinder? inoperable ( oh, and an unexpected family of kittens ! )

Thank you

But I have missed out (lost the thread) on the further tribulations, what happened(where) next, I saw your test images with the (expected sans filter) white balance etc. which looked promising but then I see you are reporting much doom ! what went wrong after that ?

Malcolm.

I've added a bit to the Peltier cooling thread to report present feelings on the matter and to bring it back to the front.

Following other cooling reports, I disconnected in turn, what appeared to be unneeded ribbons and still had a working camera until I came to the top right one (looking at the main board with the camera upright). This is one place where the 1100D was different from the 450D that was used in the cooling examples. I reconnected the cable but that was where the problem occurred. I had problems getting this cable to stay put and closer examination showed that I didn't get it right in previously, yet the camera worked at that point. This cable connects to the to the smaller circuit board that also contains the main power connection via twin orange and blue wires to the main board, the SD card connector and the flash circuit.

Further tests have shown that the switch for the battery cover opens rather than closes when the cover is closed. I had assumed - wrongly - that this was a normally open switch directly in the power supply line and that the power was all off when the cover was off. I think there were probably times when I had the battery in with the camera switched off and cover open and was fiddling about with things.

I guess the main candidate for failure is probably the main circuit board. I've tried with the smaller PCB disconnected but no joy.

[Gina]

Hi Gina, sorry to hear your having more problems, one of my ribbon cables shed its small plastic backing and would not stay in place, I used a small piece cut from my microsoft winxp licence sticker to replace it, held in like a charm. Your right about the peg on the battery door, all canon dslr's won't allow power on without the door closed.

Hope yours gets sorted soon.

Thank you Danielle I haven't had your problem. Mine was that I hadn't got the cable right in and the two little tabs at the edges weren't behind the tiny pegs on the connector.

[Gina]

Gina, I haven't been following your previous thread but if you need spare parts drop Lehmanns an email with what you need. Ive used them in the past and they are very reasonable.

Thank you very much for the link - I now have two places to try for spares

[George]

Read you other thread

I had a similar problem with the 1000D way back when, I know you have probably inserted and reinserted the ribbon connectors numerous times in your fault finding but have you cleaned them? From what I've read finger grease is enough to null an electrical connection with fine connections, I cured my own electrical problems by swapping each of the ribbon cable connectors with alcohol and my problems were cured.

My money tho is a bad connection on the SD card or battery flap switch

[Ptarmigan]

"Arrgh!", or "Oh Dear!", or words to that effect !

Thanks for bringing me up to date, I see now where I lost the plot, I had read the first few posts of the peltier thread where you were musing about the possibility of doing it, but I had failed to return to it to read of the 'doings' .

I see your reluctance to mod the replacement - not only the cost but the probability of finding another 'clean' secondhand one again.

Gosh, what a dilemma. Fingers xxed for you that you can get it sorted.

[Gina]

Read you other thread

I had a similar problem with the 1000D way back when, I know you have probably inserted and reinserted the ribbon connectors numerous times in your fault finding but have you cleaned them? From what I've read finger grease is enough to null an electrical connection with fine connections, I cured my own electrical problems by swapping each of the ribbon cable connectors with alcohol and my problems were cured.

My money tho is a bad connection on the SD card or battery flap switch

Ah yes, good point, I could have got finger grease on them. Thank you

[Gina]

"Arrgh!", or "Oh Dear!", or words to that effect !

Thanks for bringing me up to date, I see now where I lost the plot, I had read the first few posts of the peltier thread where you were musing about the possibility of doing it, but I had failed to return to it to read of the 'doings' .

I see your reluctance to mod the replacement - not only the cost but the probability of finding another 'clean' secondhand one again.

Gosh, what a dilemma. Fingers xxed for you that you can get it sorted.

Thank you Yes, dilemma is right! I'm going to try not to rush into things - I get a bit too over-enthusiastic at times

I made good use of the no.2 camera last night and got a few dozen shots of M42 with the 135mm telephoto lens (before the battery ran out). I'm hoping to process them today. Used the EOS Utilities - I couldn't get APT to work. I'll post about that elsewhere.

[Magnum]

Have I missed a part of this thread, what is the actual problem with the camera now, does it turn on at all? If not you have probably blown the fuse on the front circuit board, this is easy to fix by bridging with a single thread of the thinnest fuse wire you can find.

Lee

[Islander]

DC (as in power) board replacements seem to be a common theme with some Canons - there's a useful forum that may be able to give you a pointer or two.

Talk Photography™

Good luck

[Gina]

Have I missed a part of this thread, what is the actual problem with the camera now, does it turn on at all? If not you have probably blown the fuse on the front circuit board, this is easy to fix by bridging with a single thread of the thinnest fuse wire you can find.

Lee

No, it doesn't turn on at all - nothing works. Except that there is power reaching the main board from the battery. viz. 7.6v on the 2 pin connector with the orange and blue wires. I'll check the fuse - thanks

[Gina]

I've removed the power PCB and cannot find a fuse on it, on either side. The main components on the board are for the flash. There is a tiny lithium cell on the back - not sure what that does. Generally these provide memory backup but is there any volatile memory in these cameras, I wonder.

I've ordered some Isopropanol (Isopropyl Alcohol) for cleaning the ribbon cable contacts but it'll be a few days coming. I'm thinking of using some image sensor cleaning fluid in the meantime. I suspect this might be the same.

[Psychobilly]

Sensor Cleaning fluid - at least the decent stuff usually contains Methanol...

[yesyes]

There is a tiny lithium cell on the back - not sure what that does. Generally these provide memory backup but is there any volatile memory in these cameras, I wonder.

I would think that's to keep the clock running and to keep your settings....

[Islander]

Methanol or ethanol. It'll be suitable as an electrical contact cleaner anyway.

The cameras hold user defined settings - that's probably what the battery is for

[Gina]

Thanks all Ah yes, clock and user settings, of course

Right I'll use the sensor cleaning fluid and one of the pads to clean the ribbon cables

[Reggie]

I suspect that there will probably be an eeprom of some kind on the camera, some NAND flash and some ram of some description. The ram obviously loses everything once it hasn't got power, the nand should last a few years without needing a charge, longer for the eeprom. Oh and of course there will be an RTC of some kind to attempt to keep track of time, that's probably what the battery is for, just like the one in the BIOS on a PC.

[Catanonia]

Not usre if this has been mentioned, but if the door of the battery compartment is not fully closed and you havent got the case on properly fully grounded it will not power up. Well this is what I found on my 1000D when it was in pieces.

I have a similar problem, my 1000D works perfect, just no screen display and I can't work out why, no damge to cables anywhere.