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Message # 17933.4

Subject: Re: camera ruined??

Date: Wed 31/08/05 04:47:40 GMT

Name: MaK

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Most electronics are NOT destroyed by water (actually, I clean electronics under the water tap myself), but the weak point is the printed circuit board (PCB) tracks, which is made of copper – just covered with a very thin solder mask. Copper simply hates water and especially saltwater.

Since your camera has not been totally immersed into saltwater there is a good chance that there is only a minor course of the malfunction. It is probably a defect on a mechanical contact or something as simple as a fast discharge of the batteries because of the conducting saltwater.

In your case, I would first try to clean the battery contacts and replace the batteries. If this were not enough, I would open the camera and wash out the salt under a water tap. Then I would use compressed air to dry it out. Don’t use hot air because the oxygen in the air gets very aggressive when it is warmed up! Finally, I would try to clean all mechanical contacts, which is probably the course of the malfunction.

Note that a high humidity internal in the camera will damage the PCB – even if there is no salt, so therefore I think that it is a bad idea with a long dry out period, and I think that you must act fast if it should be possible to save the camera.

Good luck.

In reply to Message (17933)

camera ruined??

By tdouty - tdouty@yahoo.com Mon 29/08/05 07:09:25 GMT

Website: http://community.webshots.com/user/tdouty2007

Ok, I'll put this out there for ideas. On this last trip, we had a bit of an accident with the camera. You can see from the sweater teaser pic that this photo set was taken pretty late in the evening. I was trying to photograph Jennifer from the front side as she waded into the ocean. I got a few pictures and then a big wave hit me from the back. Jennifer didn't see it coming either. I raised the camera up high when it hit, but it got a good hit of saltwater. It worked long enough to take some more picture, but hasn't worked since. I'm still hoping it will dry out, but really doubt it will ever turn on again. The problem is that this camera belongs to my mother. I've been using it for a while now but had to return it soon. I have to replace this camera before I can even think about getting one for ourselves. When we do get one, we'd like to get one with an underwater housing (gee, wonder why?). We've never charged anything for the pictures we've given to the community and are looking for help to get a camera because without it, the photos are done for a while. I've thought about ideas, but can't think of much that will help us to hide our identity easily except for one thing. I was thinking that it might work to have anyone wishing to make a donation towards the camera fund to give the donation to my paypal account (http://www.paypal.com) at tdouty@yahoo.com Does anyone have any other ideas or would anyone be willing to make a donation in this way? What are your thoughts? I was thinking that this might work because I could then use the Paypal funds to purchse a camera online.

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