FS7: FS7 repair questions

A

armbruster

New member
Hi everybody,

Preface

Accidents happen; I'm sure we can all attest to that. This is my accident.

I erroneously weather-proofed our FS7 and it suffered water damage from a light ocean spray. The weather kicked up and it's a serious understatement to say it was a freak-accident spray. Wind kicked, bag flew up, mist hit it – in the blink of an eye. It was like something out of a comedy film. The salty mist seared the left-hand side of the camera body, right where four-fin fan vent is located. Even after the body had its power sourced removed promptly (within 3-5 seconds), it still suffered a major failure and was DOA back at the office.

Yes, I deserve to wear the dunce cap. I've never, ever damaged a single piece of equipment in my life; until now.

Needless to say, we've replaced the camera body. Luckily the M15, glass, etc. is all fine.

My question

Sony USA obviously won't fix it. We send it in, boom "Water damage, do you want us to ship it back or to destroy it here?" response, as to be expected. Now I have this severed camera body here in front of me.

I'd like to repair it myself. I can handle soldering decently well and have steady hands. I was wondering if anybody here knows what part number is most likely to be the culprit here? Has anybody done a documented teardown? My googling is turning up nothing.

Thanks for reading and please don't laugh at me too hard.
 
I'm skeptical you can solder your way out of multiple fried IC's. You'd need serious tech support from Sony.

Sony.

With a robust sense of skepticism you could isolate what you can and soak parts in pure isopropyl for 24 hrs - wind dry- ziploc seal in huge amounts of rice 24 hrs. then forget it.

Virgin sacrifice, voodoo and dark magic where indicated.
 
I wouldn't even be that sure the fan vent opening was the problem. Not sure about the FS7, but for many of their cameras Sony isolates the air cooling path to be essentially a tube with heat sinks that pull the heat from the electronics - and thus be more impervious to dust.

But the bigger issue is that, unless you immediately dumped the camera into clean, fresh water, the salt effect from the sea spray immediately starts to corrode your circuit boards/electronics/contacts -- so even if you could revive the beast, it could be more likely to go down from the corrosion.
 
Be very skeptical. Anything you do to electronics after salt water is closing the barn door after the horse has gone. I have recovered the ability to boot up but never for a device to run correctly. Shorted out IC's are toast.
 
Yikes! Do you have insurance? Sounds like a good case for a claim. That's what it's for after all. I'm sorry you had this problem!
 
Can I add a question in this area as well...? What if the electronic device was dropped in fresh water....? Or.... if it was dropped in a limestone lake?
 
When at sea lighting is a prime source of concern, on a sailboat your mast is the first step on it's pathway to ground. Ive felt lighting striking nearby me at sea- sharp pulses that knock you. I carried cheap walmart jumper cables and clipped them to my steel shrouds on each side and let the other end trail in the water so the current could bypass me and my hull. skip over me. Salt ocean water conducts current well towards ground - it passes the charge efficiently. Fresh water by comparison (to a sailor) is a death trap. It does not pass or conduct the current well which tends to bottle up the current creating a more explosive situation. A look at marine insurance tables is sobering - fresh water sailors don't stand a chance.

Salt water takes electrical current and spreads it, freshwater not so much. Corrosion is not the real problem in electronic submersions because it can be cleaned with solutions if caught in time- dead shorts are the killer. A dead short is bridging a circuit (pos to neg) in an unintended way- like a screwdriver blade that touches both battery terminals in your car battery. Boom. With a seawater slapped FS7, a million screwdriver blades terminated most of the circuits on the effected boards. There is no fix for that. Circuits that were open got closed and overloaded- melted. Circuits that were closed, same thing. You can't clean a melted circuit, it needs to be rewired.

Salt water drowned the magic smoke in their. It's gone.
 
plasticam said:
When at sea lighting is a prime source of concern, on a sailboat your mast is the first step on it's pathway to ground. Ive felt lighting striking nearby me at sea- sharp pulses that knock you.
Click to expand...


lightning, not "lighting". Just in case anyone was confused by the typo.

For me lighting is always of prime concern, not just when at sea. :happy:
 
I will not be careless with my spelling JP
I wil not be careless with my spelling JP
I will not be careless with my spellibg JP
 
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I'd say have a go at the teardown, and sell off or save the parts that aren't damaged. Could be fun to take the camera apart, learn about it's inner workings, post detailed photos for the heck of it... It's a brick, might as well donate it's body to science :p
 
Wes. said:
I'd say have a go at the teardown, and sell off or save the parts that aren't damaged. Could be fun to take the camera apart, learn about it's inner workings, post detailed photos for the heck of it... It's a brick, might as well donate it's body to science :p
Click to expand...

A teardown would be a very popular blog post! I say go ahead and do it.
 
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