02-08-2013 04:48 AM
Dear Friends,
I am a proud owner of 7D for the past 2.5 yrs and have done many trips and shooting with that.
I am not using any battery grip. Have 2 Canon original battery with me.
Fromyesterday night I am getting an error "Cannot communicate with battery". It is same described in the below link also :-
I am using Original Canon battery and I have tried with both of them but no result.
As per User Guide ,
"
If the message "Cannot communicate with battery" is displayed when checking the battery status, select [OK] and continue shooting. Please note that the battery level indicator will appear blank.
"
My concern is :-
1. If I ignore that and continue shooting , will it create any problem to the Camera functionality ?
2. Wil the battery drain fast due to that ?
I am Ok with not displaying the battery infor as of now ( which I will repair by Canon) but need to confirm that the battery functionality will remain as usual. I will be travelling for a birding trip soon and I due to short time I dont want to send it to repair...
Please guide.
Warm Regards,
Ari...
09-15-2014 03:29 PM
I'm in the same boat you are in and am willing to repair my own camera, was a tech for most of my life and willing to do anything. I've been collecting photos. You realize that more than one camera have this problem and seem to be built on the same frame. I have about 15 photos so far but not a step by step. I know some of the "rubber" needs to be pealed back to get access to the screws. What's the best way for me to share these photos I've gathered from various forums? I just zipped them, shrinks down to about 17 MB, but could be larger. I'd put them on my own server but it's down yet.
I found a Canon parts list for the camera but have not been able to find a service manual. Canon won't sell them to you unless you are an authorized repair center. I found a manual for my GL-2 but it took a lot of work. If you can find a 7D service manual, that would help.
I've found sources on ebay that sell Canon parts, but Canon is very friendly when it comes to purchasing parts, and often the prices on the net are actually higher than Canon.
The photos from the previous post (a Hungarian forum) were not too clear, I contacted a friend who speaks many languages but Hungarian is not one of them, and if it matters, that's not the name of the actual language.
Let's share what we find here, $300.00 labor to do the work by Canon for a problem they created isn't right.
I'm going to take a chance and post my personal email here, sort of: emptech@surewest.xxxxxxx where the last part is net
Jim
10-17-2014 02:30 PM - last edited on 12-28-2016 08:40 AM by Stephen
7D owners, I hope this fixes your problem, don't waste your time resetting the camera, putting it in the freezer, etc.
I didn't mention in my previous post, I've been an instrument technician for more than 40 years and don't have a problem going into the camera and making the repairs, I've done so on other Canon cameras and Canon lenses. Service manuals don't always give the order of which screws need to be removed. I wouldn't know in the case of the 7D because I've never seen a service manual.
We have been led to believe that the cause of the problem was due to a screw making the ground connection on one of the circuit boards had come loose and was floating around inside the camera. The first symptom is that we get the famous error as described on the subject of this thread. If the problem goes long enough unfixed, not only can we not read the battery level, I've heard that even if the camera is turned off, the battery will discharge over a very short period of time. Worse than that, if the loose screw shorts between some traces on any of the boards, catastrophic results will occur, then circuit boards actually will have to be replaced.
I held off repairing my camera, simply because I didn't have the time. I put out the request on multiple forums asking which screws need to be removed. As it turns out, a total of eight screws need to be removed to remove the bottom panel of the camers. Six screws on the bottom and one screw on each side of the camera. I took my camera apart, found the loose screw, applied a tiny drop of #242 blue loctite and put the screw back where it belonged. It should have been loctited in the first place, never was, I have heard that Canon is charging people as much as $300 for a repair that never should have been necessary, because of a factory defect. I took a photo showing the bottom removed, it is obvious as to where the screw is missing from. The screw was jammed up into the camera, a couple taps on a table top loosened the screw. There are three types of screws, three of the screws on the bottom have a blue thread lock, probably loctite. Three of the screws on the bottom do not, they are the same size. The two screws on the left and right side near the bottom of the camera are a little longer than the bottom screws, don't get them mixed up.
I would attach my photo showing where the screw is missing from but don't know how to attach a photo to this post. I've seen similiar photos elsewhere on the web.
We owe the help to John Clark
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Moderator Note: Edited personal information out of post per forum guidelines.
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John made a 15 minute video, it is on youtube showing exactly what he had to do to perform the repair.
This video is being shared with John's permission:
[Removed per FORUM GUIDELINES]
As I mentioned, if you let this problem go too long, it may only get worse, damaging more boards and costing you more money.
And, yes, I did ask others which screws were to be removed, I didn't have the time to expermiment, I had other priorities.
Jim, owner of many Canon products
Empirical Technology
10-29-2014 02:54 AM
09-15-2014 03:54 PM
"Anyone have any idea how to remove the bottom panel to allow access?"
The fact you need to ask this question is a very good reason to stay out of your 7D. Not knowing what to touch and not and what to do and not is a prescription for disaster.
Fair warning to all of you. Now go on and tear into your expensive cameras. I kmow you will.
10-18-2014 01:18 AM
Please check my post where I gave a link to a youtube video on making the repair:
http://www.forums.usa.canon.com/t5/EOS/Cannot-communicate-with-battery-7D/td-p/13875/page/7
BTW, I must appologize for also asking for information on how to take the camera apart, I had no business doing such, cheating Canon out of a repair job, and not being a camera technician (I was an instrument technician), I had no business asking for help on this subject either, if you read some of my previous posts, you might learn a little about some of the circuits.
Jim
10-18-2014 05:58 AM - edited 10-18-2014 06:01 AM
10-18-2014 09:04 AM
Glad to hear you fixed it, where did you find the screw?
Please spread the word on this, there are so many rumors out there about how to fix the camera and 99% of the solutions are wrong. I've been hitting as many forums as I could find. I think that you will find that your camera after resetting all the settings has been returned to normal.
Jim
10-19-2014 12:26 PM
10-18-2014 09:37 AM
@emptech wrote:Please check my post where I gave a link to a youtube video on making the repair:
http://www.forums.usa.canon.com/t5/EOS/Cannot-communicate-with-battery-7D/td-p/13875/page/7
BTW, I must appologize for also asking for information on how to take the camera apart, I had no business doing such, cheating Canon out of a repair job, and not being a camera technician (I was an instrument technician), I had no business asking for help on this subject either, if you read some of my previous posts, you might learn a little about some of the circuits.
Jim
Yes, Canon's reluctance to publish DIY instructions is self-interested, but not necessarily in the way you seem to think. They're probably just following their lawyers' advice. If they post instructions on how to fix the problem, someone who screws it up and damages something will blame them for the poor instructions and try to get the damage fixed for free. (Whether Canon should fix the original problem for free anyway is a separate, barely related issue.) If someone follows your advice but botches it, Canon's not on the hook.
I have two 7D's, but have not seen the problem. (I'm a CPS member, so my cameras get cleaned and inspected with some regularity.) If I do, I'll watch your video. Maybe it will convince me that I'm qualified to do the fix.
10-18-2014 07:30 PM
I'm not suggesting that people do their own repairs, I do, but I worked on instruments for a living. I'm sure that if a local camera shop was reluctent to repair the camera, they might change their minds after seeing the video that John created. The most difficult part believe it or not was snapping the bottom panel loose and snapping it back in, if you are all thumbs you could snap it, but one good thing about Canon, they are real good at identifying the parts you need and selling them to you. I don't think they stab you either, their prices are reasonable.
I have a couple GL2 pro-sumer video cameras. The cameras had a known tape deck problem, Canon was getting almost $500 to repair the deck. Finally after getting many of these cameras back with the same problem, they admitted it was a design problem and started doing the replacements for only the cost of labor, but it took a long time for them to admit they had a problem.
In this case, it's interesting how the same screw on the 7D cams and some other cams in the same family comes loose. I added a tiny drop of blue loctite. But, I'd say, the screw was never torqued correctly. Other screws seem to be OK.
I wish Canon would give an official response on this, one possibility is that if the cam is sent back in and they find the same problem, they might do the repair at no charge, but if you wait too long, the loose screw can blow some boards and that will cost you money. So, this isn't the first time this has happened with Canon, but it doesn't give me enough reason to go to another brand, almost all of my equipment is Canon.
One last possibility, they "might" be repairing these cameras at no charge but nobody on the forums has admitted it.
Jim
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