Canon 50D - Not Powering On

[Joiemagic]

I just posted about an issue with my 1D Mark IV, so I pulled out my 50D backup camera, which I have not used for at least 5 years.  It has been sitting in a camera bag the entire time.  When I charged up the batteries which were totally drained and tried to turn on the camera, I get nothing.  There does not seem to be any power to the camera.  I ordered new batteries and charged them up, but got the same results.  Absolutely nothing, no power to the camera.  I tried taking the battery grip off and using a single battery in, but have the same results.

Any suggestions, please help.  I have a number of upcoming shoots in the next few weeks.

[deebatman316 · Accepted solution]

Remove the main battery from the camera. There should be another button cell/ watch battery right next to the main one. Try removing it and replacing it with a new one. 

[Joiemagic]

Thank you for the suggestion.  New CR 2016 battery was all that was needed.

[deebatman316]

Great now you're back off to shooting pictures again.

[normadel]

The CR2016 battery referred-to has nothing to do with whether the camera turns on or not.   Its only function is to power the date/time clock. I just now tested that on my 50D by removing the battery.

Look down into the main battery compartment to see if the two power contacts are clean. 

If the camera will not turn on with new fully-charged batteries, the camera is dead

[Joiemagic]

Changing the battery actually was the solution to this issue.  I replaced the CR 2016 battery and the camera came back to life.  Obviously, just needed to renter the date and time...

[deebatman316]

Surprisingly it does. When mine died in my old EOS 40D it wouldn't power up. After replacing everything worked like normal. The only thing I had to do was reset the time, date and change all of the Custom Functions. I only had 2 to change anyway. So not that much and it was quick.

[normadel]

And if you take the CR2016 out entirely, the camera will still turn on.

You may have had power switch contacts that were slightly dirty, and repeated turning it on and off wiped them clean enough to conduct.

[deebatman316]

With that battery removed from my EOS 40D it will NOT power up. So I don't know if Canon changed things between both cameras. I also tested it out on an old EOS 10D with the same results. It won't power up either. The red memory card light flickers but that's it. The camera just appears dead.

[deebatman316]

The power switch is not really a power switch. All it does is report back to the camera that you want the camera off. It's all software not hardware doing anything. The camera doesn't fully turn off. It just goes to sleep.