CP16-R PCB question

Max Flick · December 22, 2022

Hello,

This is my first time posting here but I had the red sync warning light turn on and stay on my camera today when engaging the battery.

When I press the run stop the camera does nothing for a moment, then suddenly kicks on and the red sync light turns off and the camera seems to be running smoothly.

I have opened up the camera and flipped the PCB over to reveal a small amount of corrosion which I was able to clean off but the camera is still illuminating the warning light. Upon closer inspection there seems to be a break in the track on the PCB but almost appears intentionally disconnected. Does anyone know specifically what this connections function is and if it should definitely be intact?

I will also add that I had the camera serviced and upgraded two years ago by visual products so I wasn't sure if this bit of track was etched out on purpose and soldered to the blue wire behind it.

Attached is a photo of the PCB with an arrow pointing at the questionable area.

Robert Hart · December 23, 2022

That is interesting. On the paper diagram and the PCB here, that trace is entire on the "E" and "F" revisions. I would be interested to know where that blue wire starts and ends on the rear of the board. It may have been a workaround for a partial failure of one of the hybrid circuits or a later revision to update an older circuit to a newer design. Paul Hillman at Visual Products would know. The red sync light should normally illuminate when you button on, then turn off after the camera spools up to sync speed. What chances are there that you might have accidentally buttoned-on the camera whilst the battery was off the camera? An intermittent connection at a battery pin whilst the battery was being fitted in might have been enough to false-trigger the parking circuit to permit a run. Whichever, so long as there are no other issues, I would be wary of messing with the motor control board. It does not take much to kill them off. My next port of call would be to check the battery pins and the sockets in the battery. With wear on the pins and on the socket surfaces, the connection pressure on the surfaces might not be ideal. The pins are slotted to create semi-elliptical springs. With a very fine jeweller's screwdriver tip dressed to a sharp edge, the slots in the little brass pins can be spread open to restore contact pressure but only just a little or you may break the pin.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Robert Hart
error

Max Flick · December 23, 2022

2 hours ago, Robert Hart said:

That is interesting. On the paper diagram and the PCB here, that trace is entire on the "E" and "F" revisions. I would be interested to know where that blue wire starts and ends on the rear of the board. It may have been a workaround for a partial failure of one of the hybrid circuits or a later revision to update an older circuit to a newer design. Paul Hillman at Visual Products would know. The red sync light should normally illuminate when you button on, then turn off after the camera spools up to sync speed. What chances are there that you might have accidentally buttoned-on the camera whilst the battery was off the camera? An intermittent connection at a battery pin whilst the battery was being fitted in might have been enough to false-trigger the parking circuit to permit a run. Whichever, so long as there are no other issues, I would be wary of messing with the motor control board. It does not take much to kill them off. My next port of call would be to check the battery pins and the sockets in the battery. With wear on the pins and on the socket surfaces, the connection pressure on the surfaces might not be ideal. The pins are slotted to create semi-elliptical springs. With a very fine jeweller's screwdriver tip dressed to a sharp edge, the slots in the little brass pins can be spread open to restore contact pressure but only just a little or you may break the pin.

Yea, Paul took care of all the replacement parts and adding video tap and ultra 16 gate so I called him and he said I should check for corrosion, so I was trying to save on shipping it back out to Ohio. There's definitely a couple of shiny new bits inside the camera.

Currently the red light is just always on until the camera is running then it turns off, then back on again when I stop the roll. Doesn't seem too bad except for a 5 second delay between pressing the button and the camera actually kicking on which was already getting annoying even for one shoot day.

It's possible that the button got pressed while the battery was not engaged. The camera got jostled in its bag while loading into my car the morning of the shoot but I wouldn't expect that it was anywhere near hard enough to cause any sort of damage being as it was still in the run bag but may have been enough to hit the button. I wasn't aware that could cause issues! Is there any fix for that parking circuit?

Not totally sure how to get into the battery connection area on the inside to check the contacts there. I'll try to give the pins a nudge to see if it is a contact pressure issue.

Ruben Arce · December 24, 2022

Sadly those are the symptoms of the infamous corrosion issues caused by a battery that leaked at some point. I had a camera with exactly the same symptoms. The camera was running no stop, the switches didn't turn the camera on or off, the red light was on and not syncing. I checked the PCB and exactly like your camera. My camera had some wires working as a bridge for bad connections on the PCB.

I sent it to Paul and he told me he could only swap the electronics if I had another camera. I did have another camera and since the one with problems was a S16 with PL mount and video tap I decided to go head and send the electronics of the other camera.

Now, I tested another camera the other day and the camera presented exactly the same symptoms. I was mad already because I took the battery out of my cameras, but I tested the battery and the volts were low. I charged the battery, tested the camera again and it worked just fine. Make sure your battery is charged with an output of at least 18v. Hopefully that may be the cause.