White Sreen on my Canon PowerShot A630

MomGetsTheLeftovers · Apr 7, 2013

My daughter gave me her camera now that her display screen doesn't work. It is the rear screen and can flip out and rotate. When I do this the screen remains lit but white. Any hope of fixing it? Thank you for any help. And if you could keep it simple as I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as many of you!

SemiMan · Apr 8, 2013

MomGetsTheLeftovers said:
My daughter gave me her camera now that her display screen doesn't work. It is the rear screen and can flip out and rotate. When I do this the screen remains lit but white. Any hope of fixing it? Thank you for any help. And if you could keep it simple as I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as many of you!

Best you can hope for is a cable that has become dislodged or perhaps a fixable broken cable. If it is anything more than that I would just toss it away.

The 630 was a nice camera. It has a larger sensor and lower noise than most point and shoots without using a ton of noise reduction. On the other hand, it is quite old now, 7-8 years? and tech has progressed.

Semiman

Echo63 · Apr 10, 2013

As semi man said - it's probably the cable that has become dislodged or broken.

Some camera models have backlight power supplied to the screen seperatley from the image signal.
it sounds like the image signal cable is loose.

Its probably an easy fix, but I would strongly suggest you DO NOT open the camera up and poke around the insides.
the flash capacitor will likely sell have a charge in it, and this can cause an electric shock (which really hurts, and can really cause some bad injuries, or even death if you have a weak heart)
It typically takes out the circuit boards as you zap yourself.

Its probably easiest to take it to a camera repair place, as they will know ow to work on it, although chances are an older camera may be tricky to get parts for, and it may be better to just be a newer camera

SemiMan · Apr 12, 2013

Echo63 said:
As semi man said - it's probably the cable that has become dislodged or broken.

Some camera models have backlight power supplied to the screen seperatley from the image signal.
it sounds like the image signal cable is loose.

Its probably an easy fix, but I would strongly suggest you DO NOT open the camera up and poke around the insides.
the flash capacitor will likely sell have a charge in it, and this can cause an electric shock (which really hurts, and can really cause some bad injuries, or even death if you have a weak heart)
It typically takes out the circuit boards as you zap yourself.

Its probably easiest to take it to a camera repair place, as they will know ow to work on it, although chances are an older camera may be tricky to get parts for, and it may be better to just be a newer camera

If you are worried, take out the batteries and let it sit for a day to discharge the flash capacitor. Their leakage is enough that the voltage will be safe after this period of time.

I would not waste your money on a camera repair shop for an A630. The cost for them just to look at it is likely more than you could find a used working model of this camera. Seem to run about $70-80 on ebay though you have the usual crazies asking twice as much for such an old model.

Semiman

will · Apr 13, 2013

Years back, I invested in a set of 'precision' screwdrivers. This has the '000', '00', and '0' size phillips tips. I recently found '0000' size online. I will attempt to fix most anything that would cost more to fix in a shop than to buy a replacement. I will admit to having a 'soup bowl' camera. This rangefinder camera was beyond my ability to repair. I kept the parts in a soup bowl as a reminder that not everything can be fixed.

There might be a you tube tutorial about your camera and a way to take it apart.

Even if you do get it apart, you might not be able to get a repair part.

You really have nothing to lose by attempting to do the fix on your own.

Echo63 · Apr 15, 2013

SemiMan said:
If you are worried, take out the batteries and let it sit for a day to discharge the flash capacitor. Their leakage is enough that the voltage will be safe after this period of time.

Semiman

HA !

nope - sorry it doesn't

i have gotten zapped by a camera that had been sitting without a battery for over a week - sure it wasnt as much of a zap as i would have gotten if i had just removed the battery, but it was still painful
my boss at the time managed to hurt his neck, as twitched while being zapped by a flash capacitor too (but that was a bigger flash, in a bigger camera)

the zap from a point and shoot type flash (even fully charged) shouldnt be deadly for a healthy human - but i can assure you it hurts like hell (i got zapped 4 or 5 times in the 1.5 years i fixed cameras, my replacement got zapped 4-5 times a day for the first week, then 3-4 times a week after that)

discharging the capacitors is pretty easy to do though, providing you can find the points to do it, and can get to them without touching them first
when i was fixing cameras, we used a 100w 240v light bulb, in a holder, with test leads attached - we touched the test leads to the flash cap, and the bulb lit up for half a second or so - the capacitor was then discharged.
it can also be done with a resistor (but i dont know exactly what type, and you dont get the flash from the bulb to show it worked)

SemiMan · Apr 16, 2013

Echo63 said:
HA !

nope - sorry it doesn't

i have gotten zapped by a camera that had been sitting without a battery for over a week - sure it wasnt as much of a zap as i would have gotten if i had just removed the battery, but it was still painful
my boss at the time managed to hurt his neck, as twitched while being zapped by a flash capacitor too (but that was a bigger flash, in a bigger camera)

the zap from a point and shoot type flash (even fully charged) shouldnt be deadly for a healthy human - but i can assure you it hurts like hell (i got zapped 4 or 5 times in the 1.5 years i fixed cameras, my replacement got zapped 4-5 times a day for the first week, then 3-4 times a week after that)

discharging the capacitors is pretty easy to do though, providing you can find the points to do it, and can get to them without touching them first
when i was fixing cameras, we used a 100w 240v light bulb, in a holder, with test leads attached - we touched the test leads to the flash cap, and the bulb lit up for half a second or so - the capacitor was then discharged.
it can also be done with a resistor (but i dont know exactly what type, and you dont get the flash from the bulb to show it worked)

Never seen one of these caps that was not well under 10% of the voltage after a day. Their leakage current is pretty high and their capacitance in the big scheme of things quite low and yes I have played with them .... even designed some flash circuits ages ago for industrial apps. If you have 300 volts on them initially that will still give you a buzz. Size of the flash really does not make them any less dangerous. Even a small camera flash has enough voltage fully charged to kill you if it goes through the wrong spot.

I kept a cheap simple resistive analog multimeter for discharging caps (well the smaller ones). I would just clip it and wait a big and then I knew it was fully discharged too.

If you are worried about it Momgets, wait 48 hours.

Semiman

White Sreen on my Canon PowerShot A630

MomGetsTheLeftovers

Newly Enlightened

SemiMan

Banned

Echo63

Flashlight Enthusiast

SemiMan

Banned

will

Flashlight Enthusiast

Echo63

Flashlight Enthusiast

SemiMan

Banned

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