5-Minute Repair 001 - Canon PowerShot G9 12.1mp Digital Camera
Canon produce outstanding digital Cameras, and although I do have a rather nice dSLR I also have a Canon G7 which I use in the workshop to produce all the photos of my projects. However I've had the G7 for a while and decided I'd upgrade, but not wanting to spend hundreds I thought I'd take a chance and buy a faulty camera in the hope of a successful repair.
I spotted loads of Canon PowerShot G9's on Ebay.......hmmm, why so many? Turns out there are know issues with the G9 (although Canon probably won't admit it) whereby a couple of screws deep inside the camera can come loose to the point they fall out and can short circuit the electronics within. The symptoms of such a problem are no power up, dead as a dodo. So, I bid on 3 cameras and won.
Specifications:
12.1 Megapixels, 1/1.7" sensor
6x optical zoom with optical Image Stabilizer
RAW image recording
DIGIC III and iSAPS
Face Detection AF/AE/FE
9-point AiAF and FlexiZone AF/AE
3.0" PureColor LCD II
ISO 1600 and Auto ISO Shift
So, I actually purchased 3 cameras c/w chargers, leads, batteries and even the boxes. All 3 have different faults just to vary things in the hope that I could get as many of them up and running as possible.
Camera 1 = No power at all.
Camera 2 = Stuck lens & powers down immediately on power up.
Camera 3 = All photos taken are completely black.
I also found the Canon G9 Service Manual on the web which although I didn't get schematics I did get more details on the pcb's including the location of the on-board fuses etc.
REPAIR
Onto the repair and after analyzing the faults, looking at the condition of the camera's I quickly decided that Camera 1 would be used to sacrifice parts for the other two as it was in pretty bad shape internally, somebody had been there before.
Camera 2 - Gets the DC-DC converter board. The original board's fuses were intact so I suspect a component failure.
Camera 3 - Gets the main CCD sensor, and also a repair to one the flat flex ribbon cables to the CCD. It was torn so I suspect somebody else had attempted a repair job and failed.
So, i've got one of the G9's and the wife has blagged the other and what I have leftover now is a box of bits, but fear not I'll be back again as I'm bidding on more G9's as we speak! Hopefully this time the soldering iron will see a bit more action and if I can get a few lined up fully repaired and functional I'll sell them on again via Ebay for a wee profit.
PHOTOS
On opening Camera 2 I spotted a loose screw (centre of photo). This had damaged the DC-DC Converter board:
The loose screw is known to short out the DC-DC Converter board pictured below. If lucky it will blow the on-board SMD fuse, alas it had done more than that with this one:
Here's Camera 2 in a million bits:
Rear view. All this needed to come off to get access, pretty quick and easy though:
Thankfully the front side doesn't need dissassembling:
Success with two of the cameras, fully operational:
