Help repairing several Reconyx trail cameras

[hellraiserdoa]

Hello my fellow members,

I have several Reconyx trail cameras that are broken and I am hoping someone can help me with. They cost around $600,- per camera and I am not able to send them out for warranty. These cameras are used to capture photos of wildlife (jaguars, tapir, etc.) and are subjected to the outside tropical climate in Suriname all year round (they are of course built for this). They use an infrared sensor to detect movement and warmth and make several photos upon triggering. During day they capture color photos and during night/low light they capture black/white photos with the help of an infrared flash. Some cameras (of varying age and time-in-field) have developed problems. I will try to describe them as clear as possible below. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am not an electronics guy. I have never soldered before but I have been doing some research and wouldn't mind trying it out if the fix is something doable and I also have some old circuit boards I could practice on. At the moment I have a multimeter and the more common tools such as screwdrivers. If you could point me in the right direction as to what I should be looking for as possible defective component or try to replace that would be awesome. There are two models of camera, they are pictured below.

Model 1:

Model 2:

Now on to the problems:
1. The particular two cameras pictured above are not powering on. More specifically, it seems that the boards are not drawing any power. The boards are powered by 12 NiMH AA batteries. The power cable is able to power other boards, so the problem must lie with some component on the boards themselves. Which components could be causing the problem and do you think it is fixable? Can I visually inspect for defects are test anything with my multimeter?

2. Normally when the camera powers on, the display shows reading card and then the percent full (of SD card) and percent battery left. Several cameras show reading card and the "ERROR no light meter". The display doesn't go past this point. One of the cameras first showed SD card write lock or insert card error (while the card was inserted and was not locked) and when that was resolved (I have always been able to resolve write lock errors by reinserting the card or blowing air into the slot) showed the "ERROR no light meter". Because of this I was thinking maybe the "ERROR no light meter" could have something to do with the SD card slot although light meter doesn't sound like anything card related... Does anyone have any idea what this error is about and possibly how to fix it?

3. One camera when powering on shows reading camera and then flashes Reconyx on the display, goes back to reading camera and flashes Reconyx again. Keeps doing this over and over. Any ideas on this?

4. On one of the cameras, the functions of the > button and the OK button seem to have fused. If I press the > button, the input that is received is "go right and thereafter press OK". Likewise, if I press the OK button, the input that is received is "go right and thereafter press OK". Any ideas what is wrong and how to fix it? As you may have noticed by now there are more cameras so if I need to do any replacements I could also salvage from another broken camera.

5. One camera only displays numbers that keep adding up no matter which button I press. I think the numbers are also not displayed fully e.g. just some lines or pixels of the display are shown. Another camera only displays lines on the display. I thought about a display replacement for these but have no idea if it would work and if it is possible or easy to do.

6. One of the cameras has a weak flash resulting in badly lit or completely black night photos. I have tried replacing the led board but that did not fix the problem. I thought one of the capacitors may be weak/bad so I tried to get a voltage measurement with my multimeter on the two capacitor leads (where it makes contact with the board) but am not getting a reading. I probably am doing this wrong and maybe not even measuring the right capacitors?? Any help how to do this and other ideas I would appreciate very much. Oh I am posting part of this particular board down below as I can see some white stuff on some of the components (R92, R85, R93, C74 between them, etc.). What is this stuff and could it be causing problems?

Thanks for reading through my lengthy post and if you could help me even repair one of these cameras I would be soooo grateful!

 

[Wimpzilla]

It seems the board get wet somehow, the white stuff u see could possibly be some salt that dry up and then short/corrode the component.
Try to carefully clean this with some deionised water and a tooth brush and then dry it again with an hair dryer.

Then if u have a heat gun, try to cover the sensible component like the infra/cmos chip and then heat the whole thing to re solder all the component to the pcb.

I dont see other evident broken component, the problem is if some component broke due to a short, u will not detect them until u test/read at them with a multimeter.

For the "no light meter" it could be that the IR sensor do not work so the IC do not pass the check.

For troubleshot the cmos camera, try to take the module from a working one and put it on the bad one. The only problem doing that is u could broke the working cmos camera if the board is really fucked up.

 

[hellraiserdoa]

I see thank you for the advice, I will definitely be cleaning the white stuff off then and try to resolder.

For the IR sensor, I will have to see when I will be up for trying to replace that. I definitely need to do some more reading/viewing up on soldering first.

But it sure makes sense that the light meter is the IR sensor.

 

[Wimpzilla]

Yep i think the light sensor is not directly the cmos camera sensor, but the IR sensor.

But then like i told u, u can anyway change the camera cmos module between the board, this one is not soldered, just plugged in via 2 pin.
But again be aware that testing the camera cmos module from one that work on other board and the reverse could damage the functioning board/camera cmos module.
Think about to try to change the batteries too, could be that some are dead and lead to malfunction within the board.

For the heat gun whole board resolder, look for a tuto/video, be sure u remove at least what u can remove, ie the camera cmos module, the batteries, and cover with aluminum foil the delicate component like the screen, the capacitors and the on/off switch.
The heatgun method is only there where there is nothing else u can do, sometimes it magically work, sometime it have no effect, be aware about that.
Look for too if there is a way to hard reset the board via some button combination or via hard mod on the board, it could help if the board just get stuck somewhere in the check loop.

Last thing for the board that do no power on, check the fuse using your multimiter, the fuse is the component on the left side, near the power connector, it is green with a "T" wrote on and the u will see a the small F1 near, meaning fuse 1. Check if there is other fuses on the board and test them.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Isn't D31 blown?

 

[hellraiserdoa]

@Wimpzilla aah yes I get it now. I think I will check the cmos module, hopefully chances aren't high it will damage a good one. I have already checked batteries and indeed there were some bad ones causing voltage reading problems for some cameras (they read 33% on full batteries where other cameras read 98%). I checked everywhere also for a hard reset but could find none. Maybe I should mail Reconyx to ask them.

I will check the fuse to see what reading I get.

@Ferrum Master yes it seems it is absolutely blown. I have made another picture with better angle and lighting. This is the camera that isn't powering on, so maybe it isn't the fuse but I will still check it. Now the question: what component is D31 and could it be the sole cause of the camera not powering on?

 

[hellraiserdoa]

Update: ok so on the board with the blown (diode I think), the fuse is okay, and on the other board the fuse is blown.

 

[Wimpzilla]

Nice catch Ferrum Master! +1

So for the fuse try to short it hoping there is no other big problem within the board that made it blow, and maybe the board will boot up again. Be sure u checked all the component again and u use good batteries power pack.

For the diode it could be, it seems to be near the on/off button, on a track that go under the button. So check/follow the track and see it connect to the on/off button. Then u could short it too but i would maybe look for the value/model and maybe remplace it with a normal one for test.
If obviously if the value/model of the smd diode is compatible with the normal one that u can recover from another dead pcb or buy it.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Prolly it is a Zener diode. Just place it from the other device. At least one repaired is good.

I guess you should replace the power supply too. You had serious voltage spikes there.

 

[hellraiserdoa]

Okay thank you very much.

I have heard that smd components are very difficult to solder right, even for experienced technicians.

Would something like this be a solution or should this never be done...