Camera died after firmware upgrade

[Robert Adams]

Three days of concentration, good advice, and positive thinking - and my camera is running again.

The problem? Not the firmware. Not the fuse. Not the power supply board. A tiny (2mm diameter) piece of yellow plastic from the end of the AC adaptor cable.

It was Viwe Gantsho at Inala Broadcast, the JVC Pro support agency in Johannesburg, who thought of this. Which is just as well, 'cos I'd never have got there on my own.

The socket for the AC adaptor cable has four terminals, two for AC, two for battery. In the middle of the socket is a plastic spring loaded slide that closes the contact for the battery circuit if you plug the AC cable in. After the machine fired up on mains this morning I called Viwe, and he immediately suggested I look at the socket - and sure enough, the yellow plastic isolating ring was missing from the end of the AC cable, and was buried deep in the socket.

It's a big job to remove it. Both sides of the camera off, the battery holder removed, the PS board removed before you can get to the AC board on the RH side. Then you have to de-solder two cables (red and black) on the Terminal board, feed a bundle of cables out through a holding slot in the side. This allows you to remove the AJK board.

The next stage is to de-solder the AC socket from the AJK board, after removing four screws, two internal, and two external by the AC socket. My Serb mate Zoran Kiza who runs a little electronics shop in Harare helped out with this bit, since he's got fine-tip soldering irons and a decent magnifier. You need both of them.

Once the AC socket is removed, you can turn the centre pin through 90 degrees and remove it, and with a judicious application of fiddle can then remove the piece of plastic which is holding the battery circuit contacts apart.

Then all you have to do is put the whole damn thing back together again, making sure that all cables are not trapped when you reassemble the body.

Fire up her, and she's all lights and magic. Halleluljah!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have never used the AC supply before. I can only imagine that the plastic part of the AC jack has become brittle over a year of storage, and snapped off the first time it was used.

In the spirit of the Oscar season, I'd like to thank everyone who has helped with this problem - Sean Adair, here on this board, Kevin Eaton at ProActive in the UK, Mike Turner at JVC in the UK, Craig Yanagi for getting me noticed, and most of all Viwe Gantsho at Inala Broadcast in Johannesburg, who has spent the best part of half a day talking me through the possible options and the route to the solution over the phone for nothing more than a promise of a beer or three when I next go through Egoli.

And my goodness, what a fantastic resource this board is - there's no way I could have got there on my own, and although I can't find reference to anyone else having this particular problem here a series of searches on DVinfo meant I was able to discount a number of other possible causes for this problem.

If anyone wants to run any questions by me on this, please just drop me a line here, and I'll do what I can to help.

Otherwise, it's Over and out. Case closed.

[Greg Boston]

Wow Robert, great story (especially since it has a happy ending!) and glad you are up and running again.

I hope that somehow, someone at JVC service gets ahold of this information as it is one of those obscure, but obviously plausible causes of camera malfunction.

I can only imagine the feeling of elation that ran through your body when the camera came to life.

Best of luck,

-gb-

[Robert Adams]

hi Greg

I'm still buzzing! and now I have to start prepping for the shoot in Niger - but it's great to know I'll be using my own camera.

I've emailed Craig Yanagi in the US, and Mike Turner, who heads up engineering services at JVC Pro in the UK, and apologised for slandering their firmware, but gently suggested they might have a look at the quality control on the offending bit of plastic.

So yes, JVC should know about the problem now.

Best wishes

Rob Adams

[Burk Webb]

Wow, this is great! Thanks so much for posting all this, I was lurking and hoping you could get the issue resolved. Really appreciate you taking the time to document your problem and ultimate solution!

[Sean Adair]

Robert - Great news! There are some other posts I found of other people having problems with the switch "sticking" to AC adapter input only. I wonder if these were also related to that ring coming off as well? It sounds as if

Definitely something for people with the 100 series to keep in mind. A/B users usually use the mount on the battery terminals, and of course, 200 series cameras are graced with a real 4-pin xlr.

Robert - thanks for the detailed report on how it was done. Only a few brave souls would go through this type of procedure, but knowledge is a wonderful thing.

[Jimi Zanei]

Fantastic INFART story with nice surpirce end!!!

One questio...to every body...
where is the DOWNLOAD of the last (or old) FIRMWARE for the JVC HD 111 ?????

jvc had delete the page !!! and now have only the FW for the 110 model!!
WHY?!? the 111 is more expansive for the 110...end we have any support ?????

jvc like really lose every custom client...

BHREEAA...

[Steve Oakley]

when you repowered the camera did you remove the SD card with the firmware update on it ? sounds like you left the card in, the camera saw it, and ran the update again.

if you have power on the external DC power connector but not the battery adapter -

the battery adapter is bad ( check for internal fuse )

or its not making contact with the mount

or there is a loose / bad cable or board with the rear power mount.

the fact the camera came back to life after being taken apart / put back together indicates a loose connection problem as the most likely cause, followed by a bad power supply board with an intermittent problem ( cracked board / solder joint / connector problem ).

if you can power up the camera, heating or cooling the PS board may cause it to fail, in which case you at least know what to replace.

maybe JVC can send you a power supply board for swap out, and its related cables.

down the list, maybe you have a bad EEPROM. the factory settings reloaded and the camera booted up, but after update couldn't because its eeprom was bad. letting it sit let the power drain out, reseting something, and the camera came back to life.

I also think there is a small internal battery to keep the clock / TC generator alive, maybe thats bad.

good luck