[gryphon]

I just got an ist DL used (of course) that looks to be in mint condition. The previous owner claims to have had no problems with it. however, all I can get is the flashing dead battery sign. I tried Lithiums and that didn't work so I went ahead and bought a couple of new CR-V3's thinking that would take care of it and still is flashes dead. Last owner didn't use it much and says they had used alkalines in it with no problems but I cannot get it to power up. Anything here I should try before asking to return it.

[Steinback]

I seem to recall an article about fixing this problem on *ist series bodies using a capacitor but I can't recall where on the forum it was posted.

[gryphon]

Unfortunately I'm not well versed in camera repair. if someone told me all it needed was a new capacitor I would still be lost.

[Cee Cee]

Check for battery leakage, was there any moisture in battery compartment, or is there any signs of corrosion or discoloration on battery terminals, If the previous owner didn't use it much he may have had it stored with batteries fitted(not a good idea). Battery acid is pretty nasty stuff. Its conductive while its fluid and can short between components and cause all sorts of problems that's apart from the fact that long term it will eat away at the metal parts. If it has battery acid damage I'd try to return it, other than that the camera needs to be striped down and cleaned asap.
I hope this doesn't worry you too much, If the battery compartment looks clean & no moisture then you should be ok, doesn't solve your problem though.

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Last edited by Cee Cee; 08-25-2011 at 08:47 PM. Reason: spelling

[gryphon]

Battery compartment looks spotless.

[Cee Cee]

that's good news, if I come up with any thing else I'll let you know.

[patrick9]

If you have one weak or less charged battery in the set The DL will flash the dead battery. I have had fresh batteries I installed that had a bad one, and I had to replace all 4 again . I am assuming that they are installed in the correct orientation. I will look for an article I saw that had a couple of other possibilities. The *ist DL is a nice little camera. I hope you can get the issue fixed easily

[gryphon]

I tried installing another set of rechargable batteries and got the camera to power up. Even took 5 or 6 photos but by that time it was showing the batteries almost dead. So it will power up but will only stay up for a short time. Even with new or freshly charged batteries.

[pixelsaurus]

I seem to recall an article about fixing this problem on *ist series bodies using a capacitor but I can't recall where on the forum it was posted.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/13335-ist-dl-batteries.html

[ripit]

One thing interesting that I read in that thread is that the microprocessor only checks battery power now and then. I bought my ist-ds new and have had this kind of problem a couple of times (only a couple of times in a few years). One time in particular I tried fresh alkaline, fresh lithium, and freshly charged nimh and nothing would power it up. I have a lacrosse charger that can test cells and good cels did not work. It's almost like it was stuck in the camera's memory that the batteries were dead (or more likely now that I hear that it only occasionally checks batteries, that it wasn't checking again when batteries were changed). I would try and clean the battery contacts with a pencil eraser just for good measure, and let the camera sit with no batteries in it for a while, then install a known good set and see if it clears up by itself.
they do seem to be a little picky with batteries at times, but I use cheap poloroid and rayovac nimh without problems all the time (lower discharge but also very low capacity). They can be half charged and sitting around for a while and work fine. It's like the camera for some reason gets stuck thinking the batteries are dead and good batteries will not resolve it. The camera seems to have a problem itself that it needs to resolve.

If leaving the batteries out for a while fix it, maybe you will get lucky like me and it will be a rare occurrence..

[patrick9]

Mine has had the problem 2 maybe 3 times in the 5 years I have had it. Remember ,If you leave the batteries out for long ,say overnight. You will probably need to reset the date/time info. Mine seems to lose the date/time after a couple hours with out batteries
I did not ralize that it only checked the battery charge occasionaly. That might explain why when the batteries start to show less than full charge. They seem to go down fast. They do however show full for a long time.

[patrick9]

redspecial
New Member
This member seemed to havehad the same problem You have. you might try pm him. I have the thread he was in when he was trying to fix the problem. after giving up on his camera he purchased a set of white top precharged/and rechargable Duraloops. That seemed to fix his problem. I don't know if it was the batteries or the amount of time or timing..I wish I knew how to put a link here to the thread of his on this subject.

Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: NW Chicago suburbs
Posts: 20 | Likes: 0

[Cee Cee]

Can I offer some comments, even though I'm not at all familiar with the inside of a ist DL. (based on a lifetime of fixing broken electronics)
Almost certainly the battery condition would read when switching the camera on, this would be part of the normal boot up software. I would think that the normal operational software routines (housekeeping) would be in a loop continually reading buttons switches & dials to monitor if any change has occurred ie." the shutter has been pressed" and ready to activate the subroutine to deal with that event and carry out the necessary actions to preform that function. This houskeeping routine would almost certainly include battery condition read & update LCD screen so I would think the battery would be checked many times per sec. On my ist DS for example, if the batteries are starting to run a bit low (even though they indicate full)and I take a few shots the indicator may show batteries at 1/2 strength. Left alone for a minute or so the batteries recover somewhat, and the indicator shows full strength. What this would indicate then would be that your problem is a hardware fault with the electronics or corrupted data in Ram memory. These days most manufacturers I would think be using eeprom non volatile memory to retain data when the camera is switched off, but this is a fairly old model and probably uses battery backed ram and relies on the storage charge on a capacitor to retain memory data as batteries are removed to recharge etc. The time this storage charge holds up varies, but it can be days. So the suggestion to leave the batteries out for several days may be valid, to clear memory of any corrupted data. A lot of electronic equipment has hidden built in test routines and a factory reset which returns the data in the device to as it is when it leaves the factory. Finding how to activate these functions is another matter. Usually secret technicians business. Like I said at the start I know nothing of the ist DL internal workings, but I hope this is useful in giving you a bit of an Idea on how these micro processor things work. Good luck with sorting it out.
BTW your camera should work fine with a fresh set off AA alkaline batteries (ie. Duracell or Energiser) if it doesn't, you have a problem (as you already know). I'd forget messing around with different types of batteries ( rechargeable or non rechargeable) to see if you can find some that work. Most digital devices have boot up spikes in the current/power draw when you first turn them on, often much higher than is required to run the camera once it's on. The current spikes cause the terminal voltage to dip which can cause the software to crash or generate an error message or send it to a routine to indicate flat a battery, or the battery read subroutine is picking up on one off these spikes and shutting down and indicating a flat battery. (even though the batteries may run another device ok!)
Phew ! hope this isn't too long & boring.

[ripit]

I seem to recall a reset in the menu but I think it only resets user settings. There is a supposed to be a debug mode (there is a hidden way to get into it) but I don't know how to get into it. I think people go into it to fix back focus problems so maybe if you search back focus you will find it (I also don't know if there is a reset there but it's possible).

One other thought. I had a bunch of 2GB sd cards already when I bought mine. Later when I wanted bigger cards I found that the original firmware didn't support sdhc but that a firmware update would fix it so I updated the firmware. I haven't had the battery problem in a long time so maybe the firmware update fixed a software glitch that was causing the battery problem (I'm just guessing there though). It's not like a firmware update would hurt and maybe it would help.

[gryphon]

My camera just seems to be picky. I finaly found a set or rechargables I had that my camera will accept. It won't power up with brand new lithium batteries but after charging up the old set (about 2 years old) of Nimh it works fine. Put the lithium's back in and nothing.