Canon SD780IS from eBay repair story

[edy]

Hi folks,

Just a quick report. I was meaning to ask here first but it turned out to be easier than I thought and fixed it. So I'll share what happened in case anyone else has the problem.

I searched for a backup to my regular work camera (Canon SD780IS). It is an old camera but well constructed with metal casing (now they are all plastic). Because my photos are all standardized I needed the same model, and they are all over eBay. Usually a working camera gets bid up to $50-60 once shipping is included, which is high considering the age of this model.

Anyways, someone was selling it for $12.99 (with $4.99 shipping) in Canada so it sounded attractive. Only problem is the SD CARD reader complains the card is locked and can't save any photos. Sounded to me like a jammed pin in the card reader slot, so I took a chance and bought it.

I tried the usual toothpick and compressed air trick, putting tape over the write-protect tab of the SD card, etc. Nothing worked. Finally I decided to take apart the camera. 5 screws around the side and bottom and I'm in like Flynn. Both metal back and front shell casings pry apart. Now the PCB with the card slot is covered by at least 6 or 7 flat flex cables, many press fit into slots, others slide into sockets that have a plastic locking mechanism. I carefully disengaged all flat flex cables. There was also a copper shield/heat sink stuck to one of the microchips which I needed to peel off. Finally accessed 3 more screws holding the PCB and after removal, got the whole board out.

On the other side of the board was the card slot and now I could clearly see the pin that was damaged. Turns out the contact needed to be CLOSED to indicate card is writable. If contact was open, it thinks the card is write protected. So the contact is made of a stationary flat metal tab, and just beside it is a flexible tab that gets pushed against it by the card when you slide it in. If the plastic tab on the card is in the "write" position, it presses the flexible metal contact on against the stationary pin and closes the circuit. In my camera somehow the stationary part of this switch got bend 90-degrees over so there was no way in hell it would ever close. Maybe whoever had the camera pushed it.over with a toothpick or I screwed it up.

So I bent the contacts back to where they belonged and closed everything up again and it worked!!!

[edy]

These are not my photos but just to show you the flat flex cables running to the board I needed to completely remove to access the SD card reader (mounted on the flipside). The one in the photo is already missing a few as you can see unoccupied flat flex slots.

[Zucca]