Is this camera hopelessly broken???

Duct tape!

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Yes, it works fine like that. I think that it is just a minor wear issue -- but it is not clear how to fix it.

Ignoramus4930 wrote in news:ysSdnaNG5-61aZDVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Perhaps a drop of epoxy on the lid's "finger" to make it slightly longer,and push better on the switch?

Also,some of those tiny PB switches get intermittent,maybe a drop of contact cleaner might help.

If that epoxy would stick, which I doubt, I would do it.

I was thinking of taking a little poly string, burning it, and using a little glob of that molten string.

It is not really accessible, without disassembling the camera.

Pick up some Plastic Fusion epoxy, it smells worse than any glue I've ever used, but it works great on plastic.

Devcon sells a two-part "Plastic welder" cement, which consists of a two-part adhesive plus some rather nasty-smelling-and-come-with- warnings-to-use-only-in-good-ventilation solvents. It's mixed and applied like epoxy, but is supposed to bond better to most plastics than a standard epoxy will... I believe that the solvents will temporarily un-bind the structure of the existing plastic surface and allow the adhesive to "grab" onto it better. I've used it to repair broken pushbutton-switch caps, and it has held up pretty well.

I've used it to patch a plastic fuel tank in a car that got melted(!) by a misaligned exhaust pipe and it worked well for that, it's pretty good stuff.

I will give it a try.

Aren't we talking about a plastic 'tit' less than a millimeter long? Seems hardly worth buying and mixing up a batch of epoxy. Probably a quick 'touch' with a soldering iron, followed by a quick withdrawal, would be enough to stretch it out enough. Otherwise, I'd do as one poster said, melt some new plastic on the tit and file to fit.

One last idea: if both sides are accessible, drill it out and replace with a tiny screw...adjustable.

jak

Digital cameras, internally, are quite similar to many other electronic products. They are very small, and the internal parts are thus rather difficult to access, and any repair is best left up to people with the proper tools, and knowledge. The comment appeared to imply that they were difficult to use, which isn't true, and my comment was addressed to that issue, which I misinterpreted. As in just about any product, electronic or not, things can, and do, break, deteriorate, or suffer from misuse, and/or abuse. Again, I misread 'on' as 'with'. Too early in the morning, I guess.

In message , jakdedert writes

Nope. I've got a 602Z (working OK). I checked its functionality -- when it is powered up, opening the door at the right-hand-side that covers the slots for the CF card and the SM card causes the camera to retract its lens and shut down. This is to prevent someone from trying to swap out the CF/SM card while it is powered up. This feature is actually mentioned on page 14 of the camera's manual (see below for details).

There's a plastic peg about 10mm long fixed near the bottom of the door pointing inwards. As the door closes, the tip of this peg goes into a square hole in the body. At the bottom of that hole is a detector push switch that tells the camera whether the door is open or not.

It's possible the peg's tip has got worn or broken and doesn't reach down into the hole as far as it should. The other alternative is that the switch is intermittent and a slight jolt is enough to set it off and cause the camera to power down.

Here's a link to a scan of the manual page dealing with this switch. I've highlighted the peg location and switch hole on the door diagram to help you locate them.

A couple of suggestions -- cut some very small pieces of adhesive tape and put them into the switch hole to pad it out, and see if that will make the problem go away. Check the condition of the peg I mentioned and see if it's as long as I mentioned (10mm). If it's not, or it looks worn or broken then try adding a little epoxy to it and file it down till it's the right size.

If that doesn't help then it's probably a switch fault and it may require more effort to repair, although spraying some switch cleaner into the hole might help, or blowing it out with canned air. Good luck!