SD14 fell on floor, now keeps turning on and off

[pawel]

Hey everyone,

I'm hoping someone knows what may be happening to my SD14.

This morning a cat ran it off the table and it fell on the floor hard. Now, it turns on for a few seconds, allowing me to view a photo, or change a setting. But if will not autofocus or take pictures and every 4 seconds it reboots itself.

Any idea if, say, a firmware update might do anything?


Thanks in advance!

 

[PhysEd]

Hi Pawel,

no clue what the problem might be, but it sounds rather serious and I'd recommend you go to your next service point. I can't imagine a firmware update would do any good. Especially since updating is impossible due to the constant rebooting.
Sorry, hope your cam works soon enough.

Cheers
Mike

 

[Arvo]

Does it reboot without a lens attaced or with some another lens?

 

[pawel]

Thanks for your replies,

camera continues to automatically reboot when I:
- take out battery for a few minutes
- try different lenses
- try no lens attached
- plug in to pc by usb cable
- reset company defaults via menu ( had to move real fast to do this, before camera rebooted. I know it worked, because I had turned off all sounds in the past, and after resetting defaults, there was a bleep on each button press )

I'm likely not going to fix the issue, and since warranty has expired a long time ago, the fix may be just as costly as replacing the camera. I'll post an update here if there are any interesting developments.

 

[Arvo]

I can think of two possible causes (from your initial description I hoped some lens problem, but apparently this is not the case):

a) some elctrical connection got disconnected (there are alot of connectors in SD14 body)
b) some mirror/shutter drive component or sensor broke (which seems more likely, but is harder to fix)

If nothing rattles in the camera body when you shake it, then probably there are no mechanical problems. Don't you have any friend, tinkering with such devices? SD14 is not hard to disassemble, there are some nice images of its inners on the web either. I would dig into your camera with interest - but most likely we live in different corners of the world (me located in Estonia) and all this (insured) shipping would cost a bit too much.

One more question - do you have spare battery? Although battery faults should usually not cause constant delayed rebooting, it would be worth to check camera with another battery. (Or DC power brick, if you can find one suitable.)

 

[pawel]

Hey Arvo,

you make some interesting points.

The current situation is like this: I am waiting for a response from my insurance company, to see if they will pay for (some of) the damage.
I called Sigma customer service, who said the following:
The camera runs a few standard checks while booting up. Given that it keeps on rebooting at that point, means that one of the checks is failing. Most likely, there is something not perfectly aligned inside the mirror/shutter mechanism. Repairing this, or just even confirming this would probably cost twice the amount of what a new sd14 would cost. Or sd15, since that is the only model available here. Basically, the engineers would have to take the whole camera apart to have a look see.

For now, I am keeping the camera here, just in case the insurance company wants to see it. Also, because its an old model, Sigma Benelux doesn't ship it back normally. I would have to find a Sigma resale partner and have them take care of the shipping. So having the camera repaired is probably too costly.

Now, once I hear word from the insurance company, its possible I will try to open up the sd14 myself, and see if there is an obvious issue there. It seems like an interesting weekend project, and, well... I can't make it any worse then it already is. Though I believe my odds of actually fixing it are slim at best ^^.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[Arvo]

Looks like I and Sigma agree on mirror/shutter drive problem
If you happen to disassemble it, then maybe next images will help:
http://www.pbase.com/bigflat/sd14_disassembly&page=all