Canon G9 Camera No Power Repair Service
The Canon G9 has a major design flaw… Don’t get me wrong, the Canon Powershot G9 camera is a very good camera! The camera is very capable and has been reviewed very well by many people. The problem is that reviewers only test a brand new camera for a short period of time; and not under real conditions, for a real length of time like a normal consumer. Normally this is not a problem.
Do you have a Canon G9 camera with no power? Then you know the flaw I’m talking about!
There are two screws inside the camera that are not properly secured. These two screws over time, through no fault of the owner, slowly work themselves loose and then fall out. The screws drop down onto the DC/DC board and cause a short, which trips the fuse and shorts out the camera causing it to no longer turn on.
Sometimes these screws rattle around inside the camera for awhile before doing any damage. The camera might turn on sometimes but not other times. The LCD screen may stop working, or may only sometimes work. It can sometimes take a long time to dig through the camera to find the screws!
If you have a Canon Powershot G9, this information is probably not new to you. If it is, hopefully you haven’t gotten angry and thrown the camera in the trash after the so-called “Geek” at your local “Best” store told you that it was unrepairable OR would cost you $250.
Hey those “Geek” guys will only charge you $85 to send it to Canon for you (which you can do yourself quite easily) so they must know what they are talking about. Right? Hmm.. maybe not.
You can send the camera to Canon yourself for repair, I’m not going to tell you that you can’t. Unfortunately Canon WILL NOT acknowledge the design flaw of the G9 which causes it to short out and not power, so the repair will cost you their full $150 + tax flat rate.
You can find the Canon repair estimate by calling them at 1-800-OK-Canon, or at www.usa.canon.com
“Estimate Repair Cost: $150.00 (plus any applicable tax)”
If you don’t feel it’s right to pay them $150 to repair the problem, I tend to agree with you. There should be a recall on this camera to fix this problem, but until Canon is FORCED to repair them for free under a recall there’s not much you can do.
The good thing is if you DO have your camera repaired and there is a recall in the future, you can get reimbursed for the repair you had done on the camera as long as you have a receipt!
We have been repairing the Canon G9 no power problem for at least 4 years now, as the camera was released in 2007 and it didn’t pop up right away. Whenever a customer calls and tells me they have a Canon G9, I always know what’s wrong with it before they even tell me! NO POWER!
In the last 2 years, (we have new shopping cart software so we don’t have numbers for more than 2yrs ago) we have done over 125 Canon G9 no power repairs, and we have sold over 150 Canon G9 camera DC/DC boards to customers that want to do the repair themselves. We are happy to provide you with either solution!
We don’t think it’s right you should be forced to pay DOUBLE what the repair should actually cost, and if you want to try it yourself you should have that option as well.
About 95% of the time, the Canon G9 no power problem is repairable by replacing the DC/DC board because this is where the fuses are located, and this is what causes the no power problem. The other 5% of the time, the mainboard (main PCB) of the camera is also damaged and needs to be replaced as well. A new PCB costs about $125, so unfortunately that can be an issue.
Canon G9 DC/DC Actual Size
If you’re feeling really adventurous, we have just the fuse that shorts out that you can solder onto the DC/DC board and it’s only about $5-6 including shipping! Problem is, the fuse is so tiny it’s unbelievable!
How tiny? Well take a look at this picture of the DC/DC board in actual size. See the fuse I’m pointing to with the red arrow? No? That’s because it’s so tiny! In fact it’s so small that we don’t solder new fuses on the boards, we replace the entire board with a new one instead, it’s much less of a headache that way!
We would be happy to help you with your Canon G9 no power repair service, or get you the DC/DC board repair part so that you can repair the camera yourself.
If you have comments or questions about repairing the G9 please let us know! If we have helped with your G9 repair or know somebody who could use our help please Tweet, Google +1 or Facebook Like this post! Thanks!
Darntoothysam