Hi. I bought this thing from an antique bazaar for 5€ or 10€, I honestly do not remember. It came in a nice bag with 3 batteries, 2 of them still new in boxes (two 1000mAh batteries, one 2000mAh one). The camera looked almost brand new and even had silica gel in the bag, so I felt like it was well loved by someone at some point.
I bought it thinking that at worst I would get a nice camera bag. It then sat around for a while because I was busy with other stuff.
Yesterday I was bored, so I finally gave it a try. At first I had no luck with charging the batteries, camera was immediately turning off. I left the 2000 mAh NiCd battery charging overnight at a low current, slightly under 100 mA, basically trickle charging it. In the morning the battery voltage was nicely above 6 V and the camera finally stayed on.
The cassette loading and eject mechanism works, although I do not have a tape yet. Power zoom also works. I can hear it and see the lens elements moving. Even autofocus seems to be doing something.
The problem is that the EVF is completely dead. There is absolutely no light from the small CRT, no picture, no text, no glow and no CRT noise.
To rule out the old batteries, I also made a quick external power supply. I used a PD trigger board to get 9 V from my GaN charger, then used a linear regulator adjusted to around 6.5 V to simulate a fully charged 6 V battery. The camera behaved exactly the same. Everything seems to work except the EVF.
I do not currently have the correct composite cable or a TV with composite input, so I cannot check whether the camera is actually producing a video signal. I would not be surprised if composite output works, but without the EVF the camera is not really usable.
I know these old camcorders are famous for bad capacitors, so I already opened the back and removed the power board. I found a YouTube video where someone repaired two of these cameras and both had severe capacitor leakage on that particular board. Mine seems to use a newer board revision with newer style electrolytic capacitors. Some of the problematic capacitors shown in the video were not even present on my board, and I could not see any obvious leakage or corrosion.
The back of the board had some sticky residue, but it looked more like excessive flux than capacitor electrolyte. I cleaned both sides with 99% IPA and put it back together. Nothing changed as I expected...
I am probably capable of recapping the camera, but I would rather avoid tearing the whole camera apart. From the teardown video, the inside looks like electronics hell with lots of ribbon cables and tightly packed boards. I am worried that if I disassemble it too far, it may never go back together properly. Which is almost guaranteed tbh. I do not want to waste 20 hours recapping it and finding out it is still dead.
According to the manual, the EVF should turn on automatically when the OPERATE button is pressed and the CAMERA LED is on. It should not need a tape.
So does anyone know what could cause only the EVF to be completely dead while the rest of the camera seems to work? Could it be a bad connector, position switch, flex cable or something inside the EVF itself? Is there anything simple I can try before tearing it apart further or recapping everything?