Is there any 3rd party service for Canon flash?

[Shadow]

The wireless feature of my 500EX just died , can't use ST-E2 to fire the unit. Other functionalities are still fine.

I went to Canon service center and they quote me for at least $200 might as well buy another one. They probably battery leakage and spoil the board, because they saw that the battery holder is corroded. Nothing to lose, I open it up, main board seem to be ok, saw a bit of rust on the IR sensor board. So I'm looking for 3rd party service shop.

lesson learn: check the battery holder when buying 2nd hand stuff, make sure no rust, bring small torch light.

[trident]

Robert,
Try a guy called fatigue at cs, I know he do some camera repair on the side.
Or try the camera workshop

[benetay]

Same case with you, 420Ex died, email me the photo of the PCB(printed circuit board) with corrosion. Battery leak. Bought second hand like you. Rarely use, stored in dry cabinet with no batteries.

Was asked to pay $250, told them to discard it.

Give up.

[Wackytpt]

Hmm.. that sound similar to benetay's one..

[Aquaculture]

Geez, sorry to hear that. Is this a common problem with flashes?

[Shadow]

yup it is identical case to benetay. So Aquaculture be carefull when you get your flash make sure no rust. Use small torch ligh because it is hard to see inside the battery holder.

Hi Richard, do you know this fatigue at cs contact?

[trident]

Robert,
Yes, once he cleaned my Oly lens (fungus) for me.
His contact, David 90456652

[Shadow]

Thanks Richard, will try to contact him.

[Shadow]

Contact the guy, good news is flash is his speciality, bad news is hard to get the spare part. He can order but might end ip same price as what Canon quote

Any idea how to order/buy spare part?

[Simon]

Robert

you probably have to google and search for them in places like ebay. Can't comment much since I never seek 3rd party help in terms of components

[Shadow]

I just open it up, inside have 2 big board and another 2 small board. I big board with inductor and capacitor (high voltage make sure discharge the capacitor). The other big board connected to the LCD, with chip labeled Canon on it. The small board is for sensor and hot-shoe.

I connect osilocope to the sensor output and seem that the sensor working properly. I can see signal from ST-E2 captured corectly byt compering the light pulse transmitted by ST-E2 and sinal captured by osciloscope. It probably will cost alot to replace

Good news is the master mode still working, only the slave mode does not work, strange.

[Aquaculture]

Am I witnessing the birth of fatigue's competitor?

I've an ex-colleague whom services at a component level rather than the board level but his charges are rather expensive.

[trident]

Robert,
Your understanding of electronics is very good.
But problem is getting the parts. Your flash is a 500ex?
That is an old model, maybe you can place an ad to buy
a faulty one cheaply and salvage the parts.

[Shadow]

thats a good idea, assuming I can find out what happen

[trident]

well if you can get the part and unable to fix it,
can always look for David

[Goondoo]

Hi Richard,
You flash fixed? My flash can't seems to work properly in commander mode, wondering if he can fix...

[trident]

Billy,
Give David 90456652 a call. See if he can help you.
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showt...hlight=fatigue
That's where I found him

[Aquaculture]

Taking my ex colleague's experience on servicing and repairing of broadcasting equipment.If you're able to isolate which certain component is faulty, I've got a feeling that you should be able to find them or order from Sim Lim tower as I don't think a flash would use military components or the transmitter of a restricted frequency.

[Shadow]

What do you know, manage to fix it by touching up the IC solder. Basically I re-heat the solder join. I guess I'm lucky, the failure isn't due to component.

[trident]

Robert,
Congrats, sure save you some $$