A77ii intermittent camera error

LAbernethy wrote: You say that removing the battery reset the camera with the error, just turning it off does not, correct? Activating shutter at start up, no error. Can you turn off the camera and turn it back on in the no error state? Or does it awake from power saver mode with no error? Not that any of this will make a lick of difference, camera error = finished, the fix and parts is usually not worth it with consumer electronics. A perplexing problem though.

Exact, to reset the camera error I have to remove and reinsert the battery. turning it off doesn nothing.

I just did the test: turning it on, taking a photo, turning it off, and then truning it on again gives a camera error.

I also set the power save start time to 30 sec. not taking a photo when the camera resumes gives a camera error.

While doing all that, I noticed when reinserting the battery after the camera error, the shutter is triggered.

amrep wrote: OK! I think this clearly indicates that the shutter is part of the problem. I don't know if it's exactly the same, but your A77 problem reminds me of the frequent A55 (and A33) "aging shutter problem". To my understanding, the worn A55 shutter (charger motor ?) starts to draw more power, and some protection circuit in every genuine Sony NP-FM500H somehow senses this and triggers the error. When using a non Sony battery (not *info* lithium) the problem may go away until the shutter is completely worn out. You may want to read about the A55camera error. Here is one link (but this is a known A55/A33 problem and you may search for more links): https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3595697

I will order an aftermarket to see if it makes any differences.
But I'm really not sure the shutter can be worn out after only 24.000 clicks.
I'm still more inclined to think it is related to the fact that flash is not working.

I'll dig into this componenent drawing more power than normal: that would point to the flash charging circuitry. The strobe is ok, so is the big capacitor, therefore something must happen in the charging circuit. It's not charging the capacitor, must draw to much power, trigger the error.

It's approximatly the same duration when the camera goes into camera error after being turned on, and when I popup the flash manually.

Definitely makes sense, and I should be able to test that with simple tools. Fixing it might be a horse of a different color though. changing the little transformer T0801 or the IC5800 won't be possible.

Anyways, I'm gonna test that, and maybe I can just disconnect the whole thing if I cut the right lines.

in auto mode the flash pops up automaticcally, doesn't charge, then triggers the error.

It will be easy to measure the current from the battery.
Testing the charging circuit while running the camera will not be possible: it's on side B of the mainboard PCB and it doesn't seems there are measure point on side A for that specific circuuitry beside the fuses f0003.

Unplugging the charging circuitry might be possible: the logic diagram is quite simple. It's basically a few resistors, diodes, small capacitors, the IC R2J20071DNS (can't find teh datasheet for this one) , the transformer and one MOSFET.

well, i have got an update. taking a photo with lens on for the first shot is now possible for me to. (i guess it had to do with the take a shot without a lens attached setting) as i also have an a68 i wanted to further check the the loading symbol of the flash, and to my surprise the a68 would charge within around 3-5 seconds. but when using the a77ii with the error and manually selecting to use the flash, the loading symbol never disappeared until it eventually gave me the error.

so my guess is that the capacitor has died or the circuit around the capacitor died.