19 October, 2012

Sneak peak into Canon 60D

This summer unfortunately was marked by a few accidents among my friends including my girlfriend that fell from the bike while we were riding together.
Long story short, she had her DSLR dangling around her neck when it happened. Results? She got a broken arm, the camera lost it's battery compartment, back panel buttons functionality and overall scratches and dents, the lens got a broken filter and a scratched front element, luckily it was just the good old 18-55 kit lens.
After she got back on her feet it was time for the camera to be fixed so we went to Canon's only camera service in Romania. We weren't expecting to be a complicated matter as I suspected that during the fall a cable must have come loose or brake. Imagine our surprise when the guys from the service asked for 1/3 of the price of a new 60D for the repair with little further comment on why so expensive.
I had doubts on the price so we took back the camera, not before paying a nice beefy 25 something dollars just for looking at the camera.
After I had the go ahead I seized the poor camera and got her to pieces to see if anything can be done on the cheap.


Canon EOS 60D DSLR camera
Trying to remove back panel
In the end it turned out it's easier to take off the back panel and I unscrewed more than it was needed. Inside my assumptions turned right as the back panel film cable connector was torn out of the PCB. It's not a pretty site looking at a tiny millimeter wide connector with terminals thinner than human hair and thinking about a re-soldering job. About half of the tracks were ripped from the PCB with no chance of repair but I took a shot for the other half at least.


Canon EOS 60D DSLR, back panel removed
Half job done: panel removed
I had access to the latest greatest Weller soldering station with a thin enough tip, used a microscope for vision and took some two hours worth of work trying to suture the wound. First time I almost gave myself a heart attack thinking I messed something up as the camera wouldn't boot anymore but it turns out it has some kind of protection that keeps it dead as long as the back panel is removed and not in it's place. Didn't see any switches of other clear evidence of how this protection was implemented though.

At times I succeeded gaining back 3 buttons and the activity LED but it was still not enough for any real good use. And as I tried and I tried I lost some of them and ended up with only two buttons, Live View and  right arrow from the navigation controller. At least now I know why the guys from the service asked for nearly 250$, they wanted to replace the whole main-board as it's impossible to fix it anyway else.


Canon EOS 60D DSLR, ripped off connector
Other half impossible to do 



3 comments:

  1. I'm sorry to read about your broken camera! It's a pity to loose such a master pice of engineering.

    I found your blog by searching for pictures of the 60D main PCBs. I would like to know if there is a serial port available :D

    On the PCB, right above your ripped of connector, seems to be such a connection I searching for.

    Is it possible to get more details pictures? Or what happend to the broken Cam?

    To get a impression what I'm looking to:

    http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Circuit_boards

    http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/UART

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    1. sadly it was all done in a hurry and I only have 2 pictures taken with a 50mm lens which don't quite qualify for detective investigation work :) I see the thing you're talking about but I can't tell whether it's a serial port or not, I remember it caught my attention when I looked at the board but now the camera is back in use with it's owner and I can't take a second look

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