FX9: Sony FX9 KSW-72 MOUNT board ?

L

LennyLevy

Veteran
Does anyone know what the KSW-72 MOUNT Board does on the Sony FX9 ?
My internal battery died and I've been having to reset the time & date etc every few days for a few months now, but otherwise the camera seems to work fine.
Finally sent it down to LA for shipping cost of over $100 and just got a $400 repair estimate:.
$12.95 for a new lithium battery
$65 for a replacement KSW-72 MOUNT board and
$310 for 2 hours labor.

Sounds like a lot to replace a $13 battery . I'm waiting to hear from Sony repair now , but wondered if anyone had insight into this and whether I neccessarily need a new KSW-72 MOUNT.
Pretty annoying if this is the standard cost for replacing a $13 battery that used to be a user fix on most cameras.
Thanks

Lenny
 
Well I found out it is the board that controls the resetting of time, date & other settings etc- i.e connected to the internal battery. Apparently they tried replacing the $14 lithium battery and it didn't work so they need to switch the board. I have 2 friends who's internal batteries just stopped working also and we all bought our FX9's immediately when they were released so I imagine this will become a common problem . Don't know yet if they also will have problems with the KSW-72 board . It does make sense to me that lots of the batteries would die around the same time, as they have a limited life and are on all the time. But if that's the case it still seems very odd that the board would go at the same time also. Including shipping this little battery is costing me somewhere around $5-600. I remember when these used to be a user replacement . Took 2 minutes and $10. Need I mention that I'm a little P'od.
 
That's totally rude in my opinion. I had a Sony tech tell me that in case like this it's very hard to justify a one hour billing just to replace a battery worht $10-15. In your case that would be around $169.00 with a minimum one hour billing. People are rightly outraged by that sort of price for a simple backup battery change.

On Betacams and XDCams I used to do it every twelve months with the old CR2032s where I could by a two-pack for about $10. Always had spares in the camera bag.

So what they do is quote you for a board on what should be a simple battery R&R job. Beliving that you will think that because it needs a new board that the total cost of the job is justified. The board itself is held in at seven screw points and has nine cable connections. It's on the inside of the left body panel. Going slowly I can kill this type of board R&R job in under thirty minutes, and have done so on similar jobs previously. I would be highly sceptical that the camera would need a new KSW-72 board. Being sceptical I would suggest they will replace your good board. Then put your good board on the shelf and save it for the next battery change job. Where they would use the same "It needs a new board sir." ploy. Sorry to be so sceptical but I've seen this kind practice in the past. Two hours labor for a card "con" and a battery change is outrageous. Paint me very sceptical!

Chris Young

KSW-72 board -battery.JPG
 
Chris I gotta admit it sounds a little fishy to me as well, especially when I know 2 other people who's batteries also just died.
I would be a little surprised if Sony repair would have any incentive to pull a fast one like that - but it will be interesting when my friends send their cameras in .
I'm further annoyed that I asked them to get in touch with me about this before i approved it and it took multiple calls from me over 4 days to finally get a repairman to explain .
Could have sent me an email right away. Even then it was through a third party who got tired of my calls. I couldn't talk to the repairman myself.

Back when we had US reps like Juan Martinez and Mel Medina when I had a camera in service they got me directly in touch with the service managers and they would get me together with the guy working on my camera directly. But Sony fired those guys and never replaced them. I think they were too close to the users.
Once my FS7 came back to me and it wasn't white balancing correctly and together with the tech we figured out he was setting it up under a florescent work light at his bench .
He thanked me. Unfortunately I don't think you can get that kind of attention anymore. At least I can't. All the service guys I knew are gone nowI
Meanwhile they still haven't gotten around to my camera and I paid them last week.
(BTW I used to carry those CR2032's in my camera bag as well)

- Po'd in San Francisco.
 
Well I got my camera back yesterday and its working after about $550 and almost a month. I tried to ask a number of questions as to whether replacing the KSW-72 MOUNT Board was typically a part of replacing the internal battery and whether the battery eventually would stop holding a charge at all, but haven't gotten any replies. The latter concern was my big worry as I'd hate to lose settings every time the camera was turned off. Happened to me once with an EX-1 though that was a board problem. Anyway If I hear anything I'll post here.

- Lenny
 
Yes, Lenny. If you hear anything it would be good to know what they say. Not many true techs left these days. Mainly R&R guys. Keep swapping boards till you find which one suddnely gets the camera going.

Chris Young
 
No response to any of my questions. Quite disappointing . I do wonder though if I would have gotten better service if I had joined "Sony Pro". Its not very expensive and if that would have made a difference would have been well worth it . Such a bring down after the fabulous treatment i used to get from the same repair Dept. Anyone know about that?
 
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So, I'm one of the guys Lenny mentioned (ScottS) that is having the same battery problem. Over the last 6 months or so my internal camera battery also wasn't holding a charge very long. I tested it by charging it for 3 days with the power off, but the AC plugged in as Sony recommends. It appeared to fully charge the battery, but it only lasted 7-10 days (I was checking every 2-3 days. By 10 days it was kaput). Now having an internal rechargeable camera battery that only lasts about 3 years and is not user-replaceable seems to me a real problem and a design flaw on Sony's end. I contacted Shahpour at Sony and I'm waiting for a more complete response, as he sent a screenshot from the manual on the battery charging (below), but of course that didn't help the problem. He said to "send it in to Sony Service". Kinda P.O'd, and agree with Lenny too. $500+ and waiting for a "repair" that should be an easy user fix doesn't sit very well with me either.
 

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Greetings from London. Fx9 early adopter, data/times need resetting each time I switch it on even after leaving it plugged into mains for a couple of days.

I had a "how hard can this be" thought; so I purchased the ML621 battery and started to follow the instructions on the FX9 service manual to get to the board where the battery sits. But after taking off six pieces of the camera and still with no board in sight, I bottled out and decided it was not worth the risk! Replacement not a job for a freelance cameraman.

I bought my FX9 when it was first released, then it sat gathering dust over covid... so I suspect I am leading the pack in having this problem.

FX9 Service manual:
www.manualslib.com

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View and Download SON PXW-FX9V service manual online. SOLID-STATE MEMORY CAMCORDER. PXW-FX9V camcorder pdf manual download. Also for: Pxw-fx9vk, Pxw-fx9t, Pxw-fx9tk.
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