I'm having trouble getting my camera to work. I figured the batteries were dead, so I bought new ones...twice. But even with new batteries I can't get it to turn on!

Can anybody help?

Thanks, John

-- John Dear (jdear@sympatico.ca), November 02, 2001

Answers

Hi

I had a similair problem with my X700 the problem was a blown capacitor inside the camera. When this hapened a second time, the repairman told me that this was a common problem because of the capacitor being under rated. It was then replaced with one of a slightly higher rating and has never bothered me again. The parts are fairly cheap, but the labour cost make up most of the repair cost.

Regards Willie

-- willie (willies@webmail.co.za), November 27, 2001.

Someone was selling these capacitors on E-Bay, and since I have an X- 370N in the closet, I copied the info in case I ever need it (didn't buy the caps, though)

----Posting Follows---- Package of five (5) factory fresh 4V 220uF electrolytic capacitors made by Panasonic.

Minolta pioneered electromagnetic shutter release in late 70's since their XG series cameras and the same technology has been used on X- 700, X-370 series. While this technology improved the "feeling" of shutter release button, the electrolytic capacitor that holds the charge necessary to cancel the magnet dries out and deteriorates over the course of 5 - 10 years of use or disuse. Finally it cannot hold enough charge and the camera shutter is frozen.

If your camera's shutter cannot be released thus cannot be wound but other electronics like meter seems working, chances are very good that the release capacitor need a replacement, if the camera is more than 5 years old. If that's the case, you can easily fix it with these caps. They are used as C9 and C10 on X-700 as well as release cap on variants of X-370 like X-300, X-300s, X-370n etc. They were also used on some XG's as release cap. As far as I know X-570 is different. It doesn't have such cap.

You might wonder why you cannot simply buy these at RadioShack or other hobby stores. Yes, they have plenty of 220um caps but the standard is 6.3V or 5V. While 6.3V and 5V caps will work electronically, believe me, they won't fit in the tight space in the body. The 4V version you see here is specialized for the cameras and is extremely hard to find. I have quitted repair business so am selling off the stuff.

-- Marcus DiBuduo (marcus31415@yahoo.com), May 10, 2002.