Canon 814 Electric Help

Louis Justin · July 15, 2008

I have just purchased a Canon 814 Electric Super 8 camera. When I put in batteries and hit the check meter, nothing happens. As what happens when I squeeze the trigger. After further inspection of the camera, I noticed that on the -(negitive) battery chamber has a bit of rust around the spring. This I am guessing is preventing current from the batteries to reach the camera.

Is the camera basically destroyed, or is there anyway I could fix this?

Thanks in advance!

Christopher Santucci · July 15, 2008

Try cleaning the battery contacts. If that doesn't help, someone may have left batteries in there for a very long time which may have corroded the wiring inside.

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Carlos Montoya · July 15, 2008

Try cleaning the battery contacts. If that doesn't help, someone may have left batteries in there for a very long time which may have corroded the wiring inside.

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I just had a similar experience with a canon 518. someone left batteries in for a good while. This may require some bravery on your part.

Try to clean the contacts; should that fail...

Get some jewelers screwdrivers. I used a cheap set of precision screwdrivers from a big tool sale.

VERY CAREFULLY disassemble the battery chamber from the body.

in my case it involved removing the grip, the daylight filter switch, and the auto/manual dial.

Next I COMPLETELY removed the old battery contact making good not of the arrangement of wiring and VERY carefully tracking where which screws went. This may sound obvious but the screws on the camera are likely your best and sometimes only option for your model.

Next I drilled a hole (VERY SMALL) in the NEG battery mount from which the old contact was removed. Then I took a "AA" battery contact from an old pager and stretched the spring out a bit to give me enough lead to work with. I next drilled a hole in the side of the contact holder UNDER the mount to give a easier place to connect the NEG wires that ran to the body.

It took a little while to get the contact to sit just as I wanted it but I am glad I did it this way as there is no wiggle or poor contact what so ever.

BEFORE soldering anything I used test wires (i stripped mine from and old phone cord) to make sure that the circuit was functioning. I used the test meter ON THE CAMERA to be sure. (And my friend to help with the awkward manipulation of the wires)

Once I was satisfied that the camera was receiving proper power I soldered the wires and contact in place. THEN CHECKED AGAIN.

There is nothing worse than reassembling an item to have it fail then have to do it all again.

Anyway, I then reassembled the camera and have had the pleasure of a functioning Super8 since.

Hope this helps.

Carlos.

Miguel Loredo · July 15, 2008

I think you meant the "814 Autozoom Electronic" (not Electric) ;)

It's a very common problem for this camera that the battery chamber gets some rust though not always visible. Clean in softly and surely it will come back to life!

Louis Justin · July 15, 2008

Ok, thank you all for the replies.

Does anyone know how to disassemble the battery chamber? I tried sticking some steel-wool on a pencil and rubbing it against the contact but it was just too far down there...I looked online and I could not find any disagram about how to disassemble the camera. I read previously someone drilled holes and had to solder...I would like to avoid that and just try to clean it, if that does not work I will just return the camera and get my money back then go look for a new one!

Miguel Loredo · July 15, 2008

Ok, thank you all for the replies.

Does anyone know how to disassemble the battery chamber? I tried sticking some steel-wool on a pencil and rubbing it against the contact but it was just too far down there...I looked online and I could not find any disagram about how to disassemble the camera. I read previously someone drilled holes and had to solder...I would like to avoid that and just try to clean it, if that does not work I will just return the camera and get my money back then go look for a new one!

You don't need to disasemble the batt chamber to do this (in fact I doubt it's possible). Just try to clean the metal parts with some very fine sand-paper, or check if the metal parts make contact with the batteries. Close tightly the chamber using a coin, switch the camera to "R" and push the batt test red button to see if the camera receives any energy...

This is a very complicated camera to disasembly, and more complicated even to work inside. I tried to do once and it was a mess!. Many screws are under the top black leather, other under the rubber where you screw the tripod, under the serial number plate... also you have to unscrew the rounded knobs... forget it.