reddragdiva | No more shall we part.

In my work as a sysadmin, I have learnt that all machines are in fact — as per sci-fi movie myth — out to get you. The way to fix them with your BOFH field is to give the machine a look that strips it bare: so that it knows that you are quite willing and able to track the causes of its recalcitrance down to the bare metal if need be. Particularly stubborn machines will actually need the screwdriver waved at them, but as you gain career experience you won't need such props to focus your mind.

This is a frightening document. I just followed it step by step on a camera two models after the one pictured therein: a dead Ixus v² given to me by daneel_olivaw when he got a replacement Ixus 40. The LCD works and plays back pictures on the card, but you only get noise from the CCD. I assumed it was a loose connection and endeavoured to unplug and replug the connector.

The device in inaction.

These devices are scarily miniature (and the new models much more so). Those wacky Japanese engineers and their device-shrinking that actually works really well! It made me want to go back to dismantling laptops, with their huge components suited to large clumsy fingers.

Ixus v² explody!

The guide was pretty much still useful on the later model. I stripped it down to the optical assembly, unplugged and replugged everything and put it back together. It powered up and ... still didn't show info from the CCD. But! It did power up! I successfully got it back to where it started! Minus the screws, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have some left over. But I can put them back when I feel strong enough to attempt the next step: strip it down to the optical assembly, then disassemble that too and replace the CCD. (FX: doomy doom.)

The optical assembly: the final frontier.

I think I'll be taking a deep breath before trying to fix the ones with E18 errors. See the steps at e18error.com: compressed air, then fiddle with lens, then grab and twist lens, then take the whole damn thing apart per the document listed above. Microminiature trepidation ahoy!

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From:

feanelwa.livejournal.com

Changing the CCD is only scary if you connect the wrong pipes together and fill the electronics with liquid nitrogen. No, hang on, wrong CCD...

You do realise you're turning into that gap in the market - somebody who fixes microelectronic things? There are all these organisations who take away broken CD players and things, fix them and sell them for charity, but if they just fixed them and gave them back I would happily give them money to give to this charity.

reddragdiva

Every device is different, and without that German guide I'd have been lost. The annoying part is that whereas Compaq, IBM, etc. service manuals are readily available. most other gadgets' service manuals are not. (I've got a folder of collected Canon camera manuals here.) I like the Ixus cameras enough that I've been buying up dead ones to revive. They shouldn't be too hard to fix ... once I learn how to.