photography for the rest of us

by kittykatfish…stinking imac!

Digital Camera Repair Problem #3 – Bad Design and Broken Battery Doors

So your battery door broke off and is gone.

Your battery door has broken tabs on it and no longer holds closed tightly so the batteries don’t make contact and the camera won’t turn on.

Your battery door is removeable on your SLR so you can add on a grip with extra batteries… and where exactly did you put it down?

The tiny little piece of plastic on your CF (Compact Flash memory card) door broke off and your camera won’t turn on!

Oh man… how many cameras out there will not turn on because your memory card door is open, or the battery door is open, even though there really seems to be no reason for it? It’s frustrating… these flimsy little battery doors made from a tiny glob of plastic are ultra thin and snap like a dry twig, (take the Canon Powershot SD750 battery door for example… don’t get me started on how badly it was designed!) making your camera useless. What were they thinking when they designed this?? Did ANYBODY test this thing? Did anybody stop for one second and ask what the reason was behind it?

I could work for ANY major digital camera company and tell them exactly what is wrong with the design of any new camera they release and save them hundreds of thousands of dollars in warranty repairs and upset customers! Think they would hire me? No way; I don’t have an Engineering Degree or a PHd is Physics so what do I know, right?

Well I know plenty having fixed THOUSANDS of cameras over the past 5+ years, I know what is wrong with your camera if it is a certain model before you even tell me.

Sony H2 or H5? Broken shutter button. Canon SD850? Jammed lens Canon SD750? Broken battery door… I’m not going to list dozens of cameras here, that’s not what this is about.

What do you do with your camera when one small piece of plastic is broken or missing? You paid hundreds for it and once again the guy at the store tells you “Throw it in the trash, this one is better, it goes to 11.” (A little movie humor there, hey it’s 1:30am I’m entitled) Tell that guy at the store a resounding “NO!” and walk out. Go home, get on the computer and get surfing.

Back we go to ebay… search for your model number and “door” or “parts” and voila, look at what you find!

—> As a side note here (I’m kinda proud of this so bear with me) I was the first and only digital camera parts store in the world on ebay. I bought cameras by the 100′s and repaired what I could and then parted out the rest. I sold all those annoying little parts that you cannot buy anywhere for dirt cheap! for a battery door and all you do to install it is twist it into place… and that “geek” at the store told you it would be 5 to send it in to Canon or Sony and have them do it for you…

So you don’t find your door or part there, keep looking, don’t give up yet. Don’t want to repair it yourself, no problem, there are places that will do it for you. Hopefully you will find one with decent prices; don’t pay anyone to install a battery door for you… please.

(Google: affordable digital camera repair… I hold 7 out of the 10 listings on Google page one!! But enough about me…)

Broken battery doors and memory card doors are very common. I think we would see a lot more customers asking for them if only they knew they could actually repair it and get their camera back working for less than -30! It really is that cheap, with many doors for only -20.

I hope this helps you with your camera repair, and allows you to keep your camera and get it working again for as little $ as possible!

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