HPX250: My HPX250 went temporarily insane

[rejdmast]

My HPX 250 (latest firmware) has performed flawlessly since last year. Yesterday, it went temporarily insane for an hour and a half.

I shot all morning with it at an industrial site using the AC adapter and everything was perfect. At lunch time I turned it off.
When I turned it on after lunch it started to do very weird things. In manual mode, I could not get the iris to open. In auto mode the iris and zoom worked, but the camera would not focus – it wasn't even trying to focus.

I tried using a battery, changing from NTSC to PAL, changing from PAP1 to PAP2, etc. Nothing worked. I don't believe there is a factory reset for this camera.

I took the battery out and let it sit for an hour. Still didn't work. Tried again for 10-15 minutes and it finally started working like nothing happened.

Today I shot for 9 hours at the same location under the same conditions using the AC adapter and the camera was perfect.

The only thing I can think of it that the camera got some kind of a static charge and had to wait until the charge dissipated before it would start working again.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what may have happened?

 

[rejdmast]

Well, I sent my camera in to Panasonic. They were very responsive and did extensive tests but could not duplicate the problem. They replaced the main power board since it has been recently redesigned. They told me the new power board affords more protection to transients rejection of noise & interference from the outside world as well as containing more of its own noise a little better as well. They also told me to power off the camera before changing batteries - which I always do.

Hopefully, my camera will gracefully age without going insane again.

 

[JamesVibe]

By any chance were you or any one else near you, using walkie talkies? I've seen them freeze computers, freak out live editing switches, etc. Since then I use only Clear Com to talk with my operators.

 

[rejdmast]

No walkie talkies, etc. I did have my cell phone in my pocket and made it a hotspot for a little while, but the problem appeared long after I turned the hot spot off. Since I've had it repaired it has performed flawlessly. I have a two day shoot with it the next two days. I'll report back if there are any problems.