Canon 60DA Won't Power On

[timtrice]

I just received my brand new 60DA on Wednesday. I was able to use it, read the manual, get comfortable with it the rest of the evening. That night I hooked it to my scope and using Backyard EOS took it for a run capturing numerous pictures. No issues. When finished, I disconnected from the program, powered off, unplugged and put the body cap cover back on.

The next night, I was not getting any power at all. Thinking the battery may have drained (though it was fully charged during the two hour photo session), I removed it and plugged it into the wall charger. I then inserted the AC adapter. But it still would not power on. The battery was nearly charged as I was getting three flashing lights from the charger.

From what I've read so far some Canon camera's will not power on if there is an issue w/ the memory card or if the lens isn't put on correctly. None of those are issues (the memory card was present both occassions and not used to store images during the session and the camera was mounted to scope using t-ring). 

Humidity/Dew was not an issue neither eveninig.

I also read the switch inside the battery housing can sometimes defect though it locks in the battery fine and I see no reason to suspect it isn't operating.

Please someone tell me I didn't get a jacked up camera!!!

[troff]

Same issue with my camera.  Working fine, set up telescope to take pictures, power up, no go. The camera body will not power up.  I can hear a 1 second faint clicking sound coming from the camera when the power is placed to on position.  No other indications that it's attempting to "boot".

No external software used.  Placed fully charged battery in unit, AC power, reseat SD, replace SD.  Lens or no lens no power no error codes no indications other than 1 second click sound. Offered lesser camera to the telescope/camera Gods. No luck at all.  Will not power up.

Notified B&H customer service department.   Purchased Jan 2014

troff

[TCampbell]

I am going to guess that the "ticking" sound is the sound of the piezoelectric charge vibrating the low-pass filter to perform the self-cleaning cycle.

There are two micro-switches that will prevent the camera from powering up (this applies to most EOS digital cameras). 

One micro-swtich is on the battery compartment.  If you hold the camera so that the words printed on the battery door ("BATT. OPEN") are face-up / right-side up, then open the door, the upper right corner of the door frame has a tiny micro-switch hiding in it.  There's a tab on the door itself which has to mate with that switch.  If that switch is not pushed in correctly when the door is closed then the camera will refuse to power up.  Inspect the switch and tab on the door to make sure that neither is damaged.

The other micro-switch is on the memory card door.  If you hold the camera upright (normally) looking at the back, then the door is opened but sliding it slightly to the rear and then allowing the spring to swing it open to the right.  There are two tabs on the door itself which hook into two holes on the camera.  These engage when you close the door and then slide it forward (the fact that they hook in is what keeps the door from swinging back out).  The top hole is empty.  But the bottom hole has another micro-switch.  If that switch is not engaged then the camera will refuse to power up.

There are two more micro-switches on the camera... one inside the memory card compartment and one on the flash hot-shoe.  Neither of these will prevent the camera from powering up.  The camera should power up even without a memory card installed, though it may display the "no card" message.  The other micro-swtich is on the hot-shoe and it hides beneath one of the leaf springs.  It detects that you've slid an external flash onto the hot-shoe and prevents the pop-up flash from opening if another flash is already attached to the camera.  But again... that wont stop the camera from powering up.

If neither of those first two micro-switches appear to be the source of your problem (no visible signs of damage, nothing is bent, the tabs on the doors are not broken and you can see that the doors fit correctly when closed) then you'll need to contact Canon for service (and actually if those are the problem, you'll still need to contact Canon.  The battery door actually pops in and out (it has to be removed if you attach the optional battery grip) so a broken tab on that door can be remedied with a phone call to the Canon parts department.  But anything else will likely require sending the camera in for service.

You might try one thing... upon closing the battery door, hold your thumb firmly to apply just a little pressure to the corner of the door where the tab engages the micro-switch and then power up the camera.  I'm wondering if the micro-switch isn't *quite* being pressed in far enough.  

[troff]

Tim,

Thanks for the quick response.

I checked the switches and plastic tabs(visual/mechanical).  They seem ok.  The battery door switch is a bit flimsy looking.  I actuated the battery door switch and  no power. Closed that battery door and did the  ame on the memory cover, no power.  Without putting a meter on the switches I can't tell if they are actually working.  That is Canons problem.  Note: the 1 second "click" is present  with the power switch on or off. 

I will contact the service department and get the camera fixed. 

Again thanks for taking the time to send a detailed response.   I really like this camera for astrophotography. 

Stan Benoit

[troff]

Update:

Sent camera for repair March 23.  Returned repaired March 29.  

Replaced PCB Assy, Main  No charge warranty

[TCampbell]

Glad to hear it's back working again... and covered by warranty.

[tsarra]

Did anyone ever get to root cause of 'bricked' 60D(a)'s using BackyardEOS or the similar APT (Astro Photography Tool) software? I have a 60Da bought new in late 2012 working fine for 'daytime' standalone use for years. Last week after using APT for first time, worked fine for an hour,  then had APT throw USB disconnect messages and at that point 60Da would not power back on - camera totally 'bricked' - Sent to Cannon for service - told needs a new main board at a cost of almost $400 parts and labor.  Canon service folks claim no knowledge of cameras getting killed using USB to remotely operate them.

[RobertTheFat]

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@tsarra wrote:

Did anyone ever get to root cause of 'bricked' 60D(a)'s using BackyardEOS or the similar APT (Astro Photography Tool) software? I have a 60Da bought new in late 2012 working fine for 'daytime' standalone use for years. Last week after using APT for first time, worked fine for an hour,  then had APT throw USB disconnect messages and at that point 60Da would not power back on - camera totally 'bricked' - Sent to Cannon for service - told needs a new main board at a cost of almost $400 parts and labor.  Canon service folks claim no knowledge of cameras getting killed using USB to remotely operate them.

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Do those programs require the camera to be in live view? The symptom is similar to the oft-reported problem with the 70D, which has recently been officially blamed on overheating during video shooting. Extended use of live view can (I believe) also cause overheating. Maybe there's a connection here?

[TCampbell]

I have a 60Da and use it with Backyard EOS (among the various programs) but not APT.

Live-view is usually used to help refine focus... but once focused, live-view is normally disabled for astrophotography (and if shooting at a star party ... even the LCD is turned off by tapping the “info” button to cycle it to the mode where it just remains dark (it would light up if you pressed the menu or image review buttons).

I’ve shot for hours on end without issue.

I power my camera using the Canon supplied AC adapter (not the rechargeable battery.)

Most of the time, the application I use for camera control & image acquisition is Backyard EOS.  But BYE only runs on Windows and I’m a mac user (so it runs in a Windows VM on VMware Fusion).  However, I’ve recently picked up AstroDSLR (by Cloudmakers.eu) which does run natively on Mac ... so I may abandon BYE after seeing how well AstroDSLR works out (I’ve only tested it indoors... I have not yet used it at the telescope.)

[Ted714]

I just had the same experience as timtrice at the beginning of this thread, except it happened while running my 60Da with Canon's EOS Utility application on my Mac, not third-party software. I had just started experimenting with the program indoors to learn what it could do, so no problem with battery life, overheating, or environmental issues. While connected by USB and working with the EOS Utility I changed the mode dial on the camera. I don't recall exactly, but I think it was from M to Tv. There was no other hardware intervention, and the computer didn't go to sleep either. The initial problem was a communication failure. I tried restarting the program and disconnecting and reconnecting the USB to no avail. I thought I noticed the display on top of the camera being frozen (but it doesn't change much anyway) so I power cycled the camera too. It powered off but wouldn't power on after that.

After trying the usual things (rebooting the computer, running the camera with no USB connection, trying a different, fully-charged battery) I consulted the web and was horrified to read this thread. I tried the trick of taking the battery, lens and SD card out, holding the shutter button for 30 seconds and putting it back together by degrees several times, also to no avail. I also checked the microswitches on the battery and SD card doors, which looked good as far as I could see. The little plastic tabs that actuate the switches are good too. The USB connectors on the camera and the (original Canon) cable looked fine. Just to be sure, I charged both of my batteries, but no joy there either. I left the battery out overnight, then did the 30-second trick in the morning without success.

The dead camera acts like it has a hardware problem but the way the problem occurred strongly suggests it's a software issue. The fact that the camera doesn't recover by removing/installing the battery or using the 30 second trick suggests the possibility of corruption of some important NVRAM due to an addressing error or overflow. But I digress.

Let me ask tsarra's question from 2018 again. Is there any new news on this problem or is my only resort to call Canon service? If so, do you have a favorite phone number to use? I'd prefer to talk to a potentially helpful real person in case there's some new trick I haven't tried yet.

Thanks!

Ted Dunham