The exciting part of buying a ‘broken, for parts’ off a site like EBay is that you rarely know exactly just how ‘broken’ it truly is. Even if the seller insists that it’s thoroughly buggered, you just might be able to eke out a fix with some out-of-the-box thinking and plucky ingenuity. Such was the case for [Dieter Vansteenwegen] who gambled on a cheap Canon 7D Mark II DSLR body that was sold for a mere €180 on account of said broken condition.
After confirming that the DSLR’s condition was basically as described by the seller, with nothing on the LCD or HDMI output and the auto-focus not working while partially pressing the trigger button, but still taking a picture when fully pressed. Sometimes it would also show a standard maintenance message on the LCD, so clearly it ought to be working. Maybe the camera’s processor was just being chronically unhappy about something, in which case an easy fix might be possible.
As anyone who has ever taken a digital camera apart knows, you do not simply pop them open for a quick look. Somewhere in the nightmarish contraption of flatflex cables, PCBs and endless sub-assemblies there might be a fault, but where to start? Fortunately with some support from the custom Canon firmware community Magic Lantern and the website Photo Parts UA for reference images he was able to start tracing a number of pertinent signals.
With the auto-focus hint as guide, this was traced back to the MPU, which turned out to have a floating signal on the auto-focus pin that got interpreted as ‘active’. Likely the internal pull-up got damaged due to the use of an external trigger module as there’s no real protection on these lines. One bodge wire later to create an external 3.3 V pull-up the DSLR happily sprung back to life.
In terms of parts this definitely was a cheap repair, but it comes with the prerequisite of having the skills and equipment to perform said repair. Still, massive props and congratulations to [Dieter] for saving this DSLR from being merely a device to be picked over for parts.
Kudos to Dieter for actually writing it up than making a 15 minutes video.
Indeed, I read and enjoyed but I would not have watched.
Thank you. Apart for some channels that are always worth the time (like Curiousmarc,…) I do not often have the time and/or patience to look at videos myself. I prefer to have something to read with clear high res pictures where useful, where I can skip (or go back to) parts and take my time to let things sink in.
Also forces me to take better notes and pictures, which I can then try to rework into a readable piece of text over the course of several trainrides/commutes.
You can get some good finds with “broken/faulty” stuff. Whereas anything listed on eBay as “untested (no returns)” is in fact tested and guaranteed to be broken beyond all hope.
And my experience-based ebay-broken-stuff tip is: If it’s priced higher than what you would honestly pay for something that truly is not viable to repair and only good for parts harvesting, don’t buy it. That way, you win no matter how it shakes out. Hoping for an easy score is a surefire way to be disappointed. Be a pessimist!
lol, this is very true, but with a caveat. the device was tested, a repair was attempted, and that person could not finish the repair. Maybe they made things worse. However, if you’re better than the person before you, you still have a chance at success.
I pulled a hi8 camcorder out of a water filled container at a car boot sale and paid £2 for it.
I wanted it for the CRT monocle.
Unfortunately, due to curiosity and just the awesome technology for circa 1995, I fixed it.
Then a built a li ion battery for it with 3d printer and gave it to the kids to mess with.
Now I have to go back to the car boot to get another one.
Oh thank god it isn’t yet another youtube video
*eBay.
I was given an old Nikon D70 that was showing really muddy miscoloured photos. I took it to a shop and was told the ccd pcd was toast and it was unrepairable. I found one from a Chinese site that were classed at new repaired. I followed some very good instruction from several sites. And bingo back in action again. I know it’s an old camera but it gave me a sense of accomplishment. By the way I’m 77.
Nicely done! Digital cameras are crazy complex. That picture just under the title is the stuff of nightmares. Eventually you get familiar with it, but wow. It’s no wonder these things are so expensive.
The YouTube hate here is pretty insane. Please enlighten us to all the free content you’re providing the world beyond your snarky comments.
It’s not so much targeted at YouTube itself but at people presenting their projects on it.
Also, “content” makes me itch the same way “consumer” does.
My eBay “for parts” story is a Sony 300 disc CD changer I got for $20 – shipped! – that just had a drive belt that had slipped off its pulleys. Sadly, it was stolen by meth-heads before I could put it to proper use :(
Not working/ parts only obviously covers a multitude of faults. My hardest repair challenges fade into insignificance compared to what Dieter achieved. He was lucky as well.
Snappy site that Ukrainian one.
I personally would not provide personal/financial details to an Ukrainian outfit of course, I mean – the Ukrainians would agree I bet, there’s a bit of an overflow of shenanigans there and even if the site owner is reliable and honest I’m not sure he could guarantee anything.
Not sure how the locals deal with all that. (although I see them on aliexpress, so maybe that’s how.)
Seeing all those flex cables makes me shudder. Luckily, that particular bit of equipment doesn’t have many moving parts, if it were a lens (or a camera with a lens), taking it apart (or more specifically putting it back together) might have ended in a disaster. The Japanese have this origami knack of building a bunch of moving parts and weaving flex cables that fit tightly and breathe with them, but for mere humans disassembling and assembling such a thing without tearing a cable is impossible… Don’t ask how I know (it was another Canon, but a compact one with a built-in lens that got dirt inside it).