Broken camera - Battery problem

[MNJames]

I've been having the problem with my camera where the batteries quit working soon after recharge, but re-seating the battery compartment fixes the problem. After reading here on the forum, I went out and bought a couple of CR-V3 batteries.

When I got home I put them in the camera paying VERY close attention to the polarity. When I turned on the camera nothing happened. I ended up putting the AA batteries back in, but still nothing happened. If I plug the AC adapter in the camera works, but I can't get it to work off batteries.

I used a multimeter to check the battery compartment and it is supplying power. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[hhcubed]

Are the contacts in your battery tray corroded? Check not only the contacts that would touch the batteries, but also the contacts hich also serve as a tray lifter.



-- Hank III
http://www.pbase.com/hhcubed

 

[MNJames]

They look fine - and I even scratched them a little to try to get better connections.

 

[docmaas]

sd9 or sd10. The early sd9s had weak battery springs and Sigma offered free replacement of the battery tray. In any case you can take a pair of needlenose pliers and pull them out a little just to make sure they are making a good contact. The batteries feed the camera through the contacts on the top of the tray at the front and that is where you need to verify the voltage.

If the batteries have been out for a while and are rechargeables you may need to be sure you aren't hitting the capacitor problem. If the camera has been unpowered a capacitor will have been draining and when you put newly recharged batteries in the sudden demand from the capacitor can trip a protections circuit in the batteries. Some of those protections circuits apparently reset themselves one the load is gone but some need to be reinserted in the charger to be reset.

In order to be sure you aren't hitting the capacitor problem recharge your batteries until the green light shows on both batteries, plug your wallwart into the wall and power up the camera from the main, then insert the batteries and remove the wallwart power. If the camera remains on and come on again when you turn it off there is very good chance that your problem was one of a capacitor surge triggering the protection circuit in the battery. The best solution is to either use regular crv3 (non rechargeable) batteries to boot the camera then change to the rechargeable or get rechargeables that are not subject to the problem The only batteries I've found that don't have the problem are CTA. Others have reported that they also don't have the problem with certain other batteries but most batteries have been reported to have problems by at least one or two people. If you don't leave the camera sitting without batteries your chances of encountering this problem are slim.

Mike

 

[gbainbridge]

Is there anything on the LCD display on top of the camera?

If it's an SD9, are the CR123 batteries still O.K.

Also if it's a SD9, try opening the CR123 battery flap and leave it open for about 10 minutes with no battery tray in the camera. That will give the electronics chance to reset.

--
Thanks,
Gary.

 

[MNJames]

It's an SD9. I just replaced the CR123's but that didn't do anything.

I'm not getting anything on the LCD screen. I tried taking all the batteries out, but that didn't work.

When I plug the AC adapter into the wall, everything works fine.

Thanks,
Malachi

 

[MNJames]

It's an SD9. I'm pretty sure it's not the springs, because I can measure power coming out of the battery compartment (while it is out of the camera).

Thanks for the suggestion about plugging in the wallwart and then unplugging it while the batteries were in. I tried that but it didn't work. I'll probably have to break down and call the repair center.

Malachi

 

[MNJames]

It works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Call me an idiot. I loaded the new 123's upside down. When I replaced them correctly it worked.

Thank you guys SO much.

 

[J. Michael]

Check out this thread:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=16726647

and then this one

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=16780711

the situation seems very similar.......You may indeed have a broken camera
but thought I'd post this, just in case something was overlooked.