URGENT big problem with pdx10 in africa, please help

[Felix Sorger]

i found wan internat connection but dont have much time, please dont look at the typing errors.
i am in the middle of africa and my pdx10 is out of order.

the cam is new, 1 month, ca 10 hrs orf recording on sony premuim only

this happened:

last 5 days, normal use, fair clima and humidity, a bit of safari dust

this morning
- interval rec. (0.5/30) for about 1.5 real time
- vcr mode, playback twice with rewind and ff
- end search
- switched off
- switched on ca. 1 hr later. no clima change
- error msg c:31:30
tape wont eject, camera is ff and rewinding for a long time. then compartment goes in again
- left cam switched of for 1 hr with no batt on it.
- reset
- same prob.
- succeeded to cut the tape without touching any piece of cam
- tape came out finally
- put new tape
- same strange winding noise for about 2 sec, then same error
- but can out the tapes now
- compartment does not go in anymore, zith or without tape
- 6 hrs later same problem

cannot contact sony here, please help.
next sonycenter is thousands of km away .(

would love to make here run again and capture more of this wonderful continent before going back in 6 days

thanx for any ideas or comments

felix

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

Make sure the camera is dry. Get it into a car with air conditioning and leave the camera in there with the AC and heating turned on together and the windows and door closed. AC dries the air dramatically: so this should help dry the internals of the camera in case humidity has condensed in there.

A search on the 'net suggests the problem might be related to the built-in memory in some cassettes. Are you using tapes with memory chips?

If after leaving the camera alone for a few hours the loading mechanism comes back to life, try inserting a chipless tape and see what happens.

Also, it might be a good idea to clean the heads, just for a few seconds, and see if that helps. You did take along a cleaning tape, I hope.

Sorry I can't think of anything else to try for now. Wish you luck.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Sounds like he won't be able to use a cleaning tape since he says "compartment does not go in anymore, zith or without tape".

Error c:04 is for non-infolithium batteries
Error c:22 is dirty heads
Error c:21 is moisture condensation
Error c:31 is "A malfunction other than the above that you can service has occured"

The odd thing in the manual is the statement that the c:xx:xx codes mean that "you can service your camcorder yourself"

I know this isn't very helpful but I've never run into something similar myself. Sorry to hear that this is spoiling your long-planned trip.

[Ignacio Rodriguez]

> Sounds like he won't be able to use a cleaning tape since he
> says "compartment does not go in anymore, zith or
> without tape".

You are quite right Boyd, I was thinking he might try a chipless tape and a cleaning tape after the camera came back to life, which seems to happen sometimes a few hours after the mentioned error message appears. I have now rephrased my post to better reflect this.