Camera not working

[Midas]

I was messing with my camera and rolled it across my mattress. I thought the camera was closed but it wasn't then I heard this loud pop I tested my camera and it didn't come on. I just know the capacitor hit the mattress do you think there is anything I can do to repair this? I have a feeling I am using a vivtar 3715 camera 3 MP. I think I may need a new capacitor im not sure.

[poot36]

Do you have any pictures of the damaged camera?  Also the make and model?  Even if the flash capacitor was bad I would think that it would still turn on unless it blew the fuse inside the camera.  Try removing the battery's for a few minutes and put them back in and see if it turns back on.

[Midas]

I think I got the model number for the camera D019920C

[poot36]

Ok, I have not been able to find a service manual for that model but I would start by using a multimeter set on the milliamp range and check the current draw of the camera when it is off.  If it does not draw anything the fuse is most likely bad.  If that is the case follow the battery connections until you find a component labeled F and then a number on the silk screen on the PCB.  You may have to disassemble the camera more to find the fuse.

[Midas]

I am kind of new to this I need some help finding the battery connections to follow im assuming this is the battery that I follow and how would I got about following that battery. I did not get any energy at all when I tested to see if I got any energy.

[poot36]

Sorry I should have been more clear, in the first picture I can see the red and black wires coming from the AA battery holder.  The battery that you found is for keeping the date and time when the camera is having the AA battery's changed.  I would also check the switch that detects when you have opened up the cover in front of the lens.  To test the current been drawn from the AA battery's just put them in there and use your meter probes on the two remaining terminals of the battery's insted of the battery door cover.  Some cameras also have switches for detecting that the battery door and the sd or compact flash memory card door is closed and will not power up in that event.

[Midas]

You are very knowledgeable about this do you have any books you can recommend for understanding cameras?

[Midas]

Sorry I should have been more clear, in the first picture I can see the red and black wires coming from the AA battery holder.  The battery that you found is for keeping the date and time when the camera is having the AA battery's changed.  I would also check the switch that detects when you have opened up the cover in front of the lens.  To test the current been drawn from the AA battery's just put them in there and use your meter probes on the two remaining terminals of the battery's insted of the battery door cover.  Some cameras also have switches for detecting that the battery door and the sd or compact flash memory card door is closed and will not power up in that event.

I am a bit lost you want me to put the batteries in the battery holder and test energy in terminals. I would've thought terminals were in battery holder.

[poot36]

Ok, I am attaching a picture of what you should do with your meter probes when the batterys are in the camera.  I am assuming that your camera only uses 2 AA batterys.  Start out by setting your meter to the 10A range and plugging the probes into the appropriate jacks for that setting and then touch the probes to the batterys as shown in the picture.  If you do not get a reading that is ok we are just checking to see if there is a major short in the camera.  If you do get a reading of 1 amp or more then there is most likely a short in the camera and you will have to find it.  If you get no reading set the meter to the mA range and plug the probes into the appropriate jacks for that setting and place the probes on the batterys as shown in the picture.  If you get a reading of a few mA then the camera is at least somewhat working (ie the power on switch monitoring circuit should work).  If no reading switch the meter to the µA setting if yours has it and see if you get a reading then.  If not then the fuse or something else in the camera is blown or hopefully just a connection came loose.  Here is a description of how the power normaley flows in the camera starting with the negative terminal contact in the camera [ - battery camera terminal -> camera power switch detect circuit -> + camera terminal -> battery + terminal -> battery - terminal -> - battery terminal on battery door -> + battery terminal on battery door -> + battery terminal -> - battery terminal -> - battery camera terminal].  What we are doing with the meter is replaceing the - and + of the battery terminals on the battery door with the - and + probes of the meter completing the circuit again and getting a current measurement at the same time.  I have not read any books on fixing cameras but I have a basic electronics knowledge background and have taken a few courses on electronics in junior high and high school.  I would also chek to see if there is another circuit board under the camera flash board that the capacitor could have shorted out to.

[Midas]

Ok, I am attaching a picture of what you should do with your meter probes when the batterys are in the camera.  I am assuming that your camera only uses 2 AA batterys.  Start out by setting your meter to the 10A range and plugging the probes into the appropriate jacks for that setting and then touch the probes to the batterys as shown in the picture.  If you do not get a reading that is ok we are just checking to see if there is a major short in the camera.  If you do get a reading of 1 amp or more then there is most likely a short in the camera and you will have to find it.  If you get no reading set the meter to the mA range and plug the probes into the appropriate jacks for that setting and place the probes on the batterys as shown in the picture.  If you get a reading of a few mA then the camera is at least somewhat working (ie the power on switch monitoring circuit should work).  If no reading switch the meter to the µA setting if yours has it and see if you get a reading then.  If not then the fuse or something else in the camera is blown or hopefully just a connection came loose.  Here is a description of how the power normaley flows in the camera starting with the negative terminal contact in the camera [ - battery camera terminal -> camera power switch detect circuit -> + camera terminal -> battery + terminal -> battery - terminal -> - battery terminal on battery door -> + battery terminal on battery door -> + battery terminal -> - battery terminal -> - battery camera terminal].  What we are doing with the meter is replaceing the - and + of the battery terminals on the battery door with the - and + probes of the meter completing the circuit again and getting a current measurement at the same time.  I have not read any books on fixing cameras but I have a basic electronics knowledge background and have taken a few courses on electronics in junior high and high school.  I would also chek to see if there is another circuit board under the camera flash board that the capacitor could have shorted out to.

I didn't get a charge from the mA it gave zero F. I don't have amps on my meter but I do have voltage, ohms, and mA.

[poot36]

Ok, I have not heard of a meter showing 0F before.  I have seen ones that show 0L for over load or open lead.  What does the meter manual have to say about a 0F reading?  You can try to take a ohm reading between the negative and positive terminals inside the camera where the batterys connect to as I can see in your first picture on the left-hand side half way up and see what you get.  If you get less then 15 ohms then there is most likely a short somewhere in the camera and you will have to find it.

[PA4TIM]

Be careful, not having much electronic knowledge and camera flash circuits are a dangerous combination. Cameras are not easy to repair. I have not much experience with that (I repair test and calibration gear but I did vivisect a dead Canon from about the same age a few years ago. Just for fun. But that had much more parts inside if I remember well )

If it died with a loud pop, most of the time the dead component is easy to find just by looking for physical damage.

That component could have died just because it went bad. In that case replacing it can solve the problem. If it died as a result of something else gone bad, you will have to find that component too, and that is often more difficult, even for a more experienced person. The camera I pulled apart had an amazing number of parts and bolts/screws inside and alone taking it apart was not easy, I think rebuilding it would have been the real challange.

Measuring the current from the camera is a good thing because then you know you can measure inside without the risk of the batteries getting dangerous hot.

The flash circuit around that big HV capacitor makes a high voltage. That is dangerous and can kill your multimeter (or even you if you are unlucky). I think you need a scope for trouble shooting cameras but as said before, i never repaired one.

Fuses and capacitors can make sounds if they pop. But I think a camera will have a small smd fuse. That will not make a loud pop. Semiconductors can make sounds too but I do not think SMD AA-battery powered versions die with a loud pop. So I would first test the big cap. Most times you can see the damage as they pop but I have found several big HV caps that pumped out there guts without showing damage to the cap itself. But I think you have no gear checking that. Replacing it will be more easy.

You can try if the camera works without that cap. If that is short it will pull to much current for the flash cap charge circuit. And that can pull down a voltage rail also used for other parts of the circuit.

[Shock]

If that soldering is yours you might want to remove it, there appears to be a short there. I suggest you practice soldering components and wires into junk PCBs before anything important. Your soldering is about a 0 out of 10 but everyone gets better with practice. See below for what temporary hookup wires should look like.

[Midas]

Ok, I have not heard of a meter showing 0F before.  I have seen ones that show 0L for over load or open lead.  What does the meter manual have to say about a 0F reading?  You can try to take a ohm reading between the negative and positive terminals inside the camera where the batterys connect to as I can see in your first picture on the left-hand side half way up and see what you get.  If you get less then 15 ohms then there is most likely a short somewhere in the camera and you will have to find it.

It said it means when you get 0 F that you are getting a measurement of more than 200mA. I just went ahead and checked the DC current and it gave 0F and with AC current it just gave 0 with no unit.

[Midas]

Be careful, not having much electronic knowledge and camera flash circuits are a dangerous combination. Cameras are not easy to repair. I have not much experience with that (I repair test and calibration gear but I did vivisect a dead Canon from about the same age a few years ago. Just for fun. But that had much more parts inside if I remember well )

If it died with a loud pop, most of the time the dead component is easy to find just by looking for physical damage.

That component could have died just because it went bad. In that case replacing it can solve the problem. If it died as a result of something else gone bad, you will have to find that component too, and that is often more difficult, even for a more experienced person. The camera I pulled apart had an amazing number of parts and bolts/screws inside and alone taking it apart was not easy, I think rebuilding it would have been the real challange.

Measuring the current from the camera is a good thing because then you know you can measure inside without the risk of the batteries getting dangerous hot.

The flash circuit around that big HV capacitor makes a high voltage. That is dangerous and can kill your multimeter (or even you if you are unlucky). I think you need a scope for trouble shooting cameras but as said before, i never repaired one.

Fuses and capacitors can make sounds if they pop. But I think a camera will have a small smd fuse. That will not make a loud pop. Semiconductors can make sounds too but I do not think SMD AA-battery powered versions die with a loud pop. So I would first test the big cap. Most times you can see the damage as they pop but I have found several big HV caps that pumped out there guts without showing damage to the cap itself. But I think you have no gear checking that. Replacing it will be more easy.

You can try if the camera works without that cap. If that is short it will pull to much current for the flash cap charge circuit. And that can pull down a voltage rail also used for other parts of the circuit.

HV capacitor? I have this throw away camera for a project so don't worry. I also wonder is it the capacitor cause it was in use and I just turned it off. i simply moved the camera away and forgot the bottom part of the camera was open. i put it on the bed and got distracted and moved it and im assuming the static from rubbing it along the fabric with touching the capacitor caused the loud pop 
So im wondering is it the capacitor as a whole, but im not sure at all. I thought by trying to repairing this would be good practice, but no this is not used as a camera that i use on the regular this is a throw away camera that im using for projects. Big cap as in the big capacitor im not familiar with others sorry for my ignorance, but im assuming that the big capacitor was the only one in the camera.

Thank you for giving me great advice you took your time and wrote a lot I really appreciate it. You are definitely right the older the camera the more parts and gears i looked inside newer cameras and of course it is much smaller and in my opinion harder to figure out.

[Midas]

If that soldering is yours you might want to remove it, there appears to be a short there. I suggest you practice soldering components and wires into junk PCBs before anything important. Your soldering is about a 0 out of 10 but everyone gets better with practice. See below for what temporary hookup wires should look like.

You are right this work is a zero. I rated it a 10 cause it did what i wanted it to do  . I knew the work was not the best. Do you have a specific name for the temporary wire hook ups plus this is a throw away camera so i thought it was ok to work with it cause i knew i wasn't going to do anything with it if it is destroyed.

[poot36]

The high voltage capacitor is labeled photo flash.  The maximum rated voltage on it is 330 volts so it wont kill your multimeter but you will get a nasty shock from it if you touch it.  I would suggest getting a meter that at least has a 10 amp range on it.  If you do not need the flash circuit you can just cut the leads going to the cap.  If the camera works after you remove the cap then that is most likely the problem.  If you can set your meter to ohms mode and connect it to the two springs (these are connected to the battery terminals) that you can see on the first picture you should be able to measure the amount of shortage that has occurred in the camera.  If you really want to fix this I would start by disconnecting everything that is connected to the main board where the battery connections go to and see if you are still getting high current draw.  Have you tried powering the camera from the dc in jack if it has one?

[Midas]

The high voltage capacitor is labeled photo flash.  The maximum rated voltage on it is 330 volts so it wont kill your multimeter but you will get a nasty shock from it if you touch it.  I would suggest getting a meter that at least has a 10 amp range on it.  If you do not need the flash circuit you can just cut the leads going to the cap.  If the camera works after you remove the cap then that is most likely the problem.  If you can set your meter to ohms mode and connect it to the two springs (these are connected to the battery terminals) that you can see on the first picture you should be able to measure the amount of shortage that has occurred in the camera.  If you really want to fix this I would start by disconnecting everything that is connected to the main board where the battery connections go to and see if you are still getting high current draw.  Have you tried powering the camera from the dc in jack if it has one?

Ok I measured the terminal using ohms and got the same thing which is 0 F. I have not tried powering the camera with a jack cause I got the camera used so I did not get the accessories that would come with it if I was to purchase it brand new.

[poot36]

That means you probably have a serious fault on the main board of the camera.  It could be the flash cap charging circuit that is bad or worse.  Try to take that board out of the camera and disconnect every thing possible from it and test it again.  If you get a different reading then add one thing at a time back to the board and see which one changes the reading on the meter to 0F again.  If after disconnecting every thing on the main board you still have the 0F reading then the fault is on the main board and you can try to find it either visually or if your meter has enough resolution on ohms mode it will decrease as you get closer to the bad part on the power supply rail.

[PA4TIM]

I think OF stands for overflow. In the ohm range is that a resistance higher as the meter can measure like an open circuit.

Just to be sure, did you remove the batteries while measuring the resistance  ? If not remove them and measure again.

The high voltage capacitor is labeled photo flash.  The maximum rated voltage on it is 330 volts so it wont kill your multimeter but you will get a nasty shock from it if you touch it.

The big black electrolityc capacitor near the battery compartment is the flash cap. That can draw a big current while charging and that is the dangerous part in the camera. It can even kill you if you are unlucky and under the right conditions. It is not the 330V voltage rating, Voltage alone is no problem,  it is the combination with 160uF. That is almost 9 joule. So it can pump 9A in you in 1 seconde. That is more dangerous then the AC mains current in your house. The flash circuit without the cap can make more as 1000V, enough to kill semiconductors  in the camera. If you remove the cap, also remove the charge circuit (around that transformer near to it in  the picture)

About those wires, I thought it was to power the camera but there are 3 wires and it looks like they are soldered to a pushbutton.  It is not important how it looks but soldered this way it can cause a short in the circuit. One is touching a screw, and often screws are grounded. The other is touching a diode, if not now, it will in the future. If they were already there when it went wrong, this could be the source. I do not say it is, because I do not know where the are attached to. But if so this is a waist of time for the people who try to help you. And it can stop others from helping you. So it only has benefits to do it right.

It cost very little time to do it the right way like Shock showed and there is not a single reason other then being lazy, unable to solder normal or just being stubborn, to not do it right 

[Midas]

I think OF stands for overflow. In the ohm range is that a resistance higher as the meter can measure like an open circuit.

Just to be sure, did you remove the batteries while measuring the resistance  ? If not remove them and measure again.

The high voltage capacitor is labeled photo flash.  The maximum rated voltage on it is 330 volts so it wont kill your multimeter but you will get a nasty shock from it if you touch it.

The big black electrolityc capacitor near the battery compartment is the flash cap. That can draw a big current while charging and that is the dangerous part in the camera. It can even kill you if you are unlucky and under the right conditions. It is not the 330V voltage rating, Voltage alone is no problem,  it is the combination with 160uF. That is almost 9 joule. So it can pump 9A in you in 1 seconde. That is more dangerous then the AC mains current in your house. The flash circuit without the cap can make more as 1000V, enough to kill semiconductors  in the camera. If you remove the cap, also remove the charge circuit (around that transformer near to it in  the picture)

About those wires, I thought it was to power the camera but there are 3 wires and it looks like they are soldered to a pushbutton.  It is not important how it looks but soldered this way it can cause a short in the circuit. One is touching a screw, and often screws are grounded. The other is touching a diode, if not now, it will in the future. If they were already there when it went wrong, this could be the source. I do not say it is, because I do not know where the are attached to. But if so this is a waist of time for the people who try to help you. And it can stop others from helping you. So it only has benefits to do it right.

It cost very little time to do it the right way like Shock showed and there is not a single reason other then being lazy, unable to solder normal or just being stubborn, to not do it right 

1.122 Ohms is what I got inside the terminals without the batteries. Man it sounds pretty dangerous. I thought it was just a slight shock not full on kill someone. Could you point out the transformer specifically?
There are only 2 wires soldered on my camera currently not 3 this is an old picture. The wire on the top right is gone. The wires were for a project I was doing which was to get the camera to take a picture without touching the shutter button. It worked for weeks that was why I was like ok I guess everything is fine. In terms of soldering, I have had a hard time trying to solder this I am not sure if its the angle or what but soldering at an angle has been giving me a hard time and I have not been able to do a perfect job 

[Midas]

The high voltage capacitor is labeled photo flash.  The maximum rated voltage on it is 330 volts so it wont kill your multimeter but you will get a nasty shock from it if you touch it.  I would suggest getting a meter that at least has a 10 amp range on it.  If you do not need the flash circuit you can just cut the leads going to the cap.  If the camera works after you remove the cap then that is most likely the problem.  If you can set your meter to ohms mode and connect it to the two springs (these are connected to the battery terminals) that you can see on the first picture you should be able to measure the amount of shortage that has occurred in the camera.  If you really want to fix this I would start by disconnecting everything that is connected to the main board where the battery connections go to and see if you are still getting high current draw.  Have you tried powering the camera from the dc in jack if it has one?

I saw a cord unattached in this picture. I am not sure how that happened and I am wondering do you think that is the issue and is that something I need to solder on. What would be considered the main board? Sorry if my questions are dumb.

[poot36]

The connector is the least of your problems right now.  The main board is the one that has the battery compartment terminals and that photo flash capacitor on it.  Beside the photo flash capacitor there is the transformer for chargeing the capacitor.  It looks like a black cube usually with tape covering the windings.  I have learned the hard way that you do not want to hold onto the flash capacitor connections with the camera turned on (I was holding on to them with 1 hand so I did not end up getting a shock across my heart but my whole arm was involuntarily shaking as the capacitor charged up and then reached the electrical breakdown voltage of my skin and would dump its energy into my arm!) I doubt that the capacitor reached even half of its voltage rating so I think if I am doing the math right I would have got shocked with a quarter of the capacitors full capacity.  Please be careful and short out the capacitor terminals with a screwdriver once you get the main board out.