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06-04-2013, 02:57 PM   #1
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Eye-Fi Card Falling Apart On Me

I bought an Eye-Fi card from Amazon on April 8. It arrived on the 16th, and it has lived in my K30 ever since. I guesstimate that it has around 3000-4000 clicks on it.

Yesterday as I was loading some pics onto my laptop I tried putting the card into my built-in sd slot. It wouldn't go in. I took a closer look, and discovered to my horror that one of the prongs from the "grill" that lines the gold circuit contacts was bent, and was preventing the card from going into the slot. One of the other prongs had also come loose and was basically on the way to becoming bent out of shape.

Here are two pictures showing what I'm talking about. I had bent the prongs back a little further for emphasis because they wouldn't stay flat anyways and were preventing the card from being inserted into my sd card slots on my laptop/cameras.

(taken with Q + 01 Prime)

(Check the link at the bottom. It is picture 1 and picture 2.)

Despite this problem, it seems that the prongs don't really have any bearing on keeping the gold contacts in place. I snipped them off using nail clippers as close as I could to the body, and the card seemed to function just as normally after that.

(taken with K30 + Tamron 90 Macro)

(Picture 3 in the link at the bottom.)

So before I was ready to just brush this off as a bad quirk of this particular card, I decided to take a closer look at the overall body. To my horror, I found signs that the body itself was falling apart. Witness this crack at the edge of the card.

(Picture 4 in the link at the bottom.)

I've offloaded the pictures from the card and now it's just sitting in a little case. There's no way I'm putting it in any slots on my cameras or my laptop in case shards from the card splinter off and damage their innards. I'm also not going to use this card because I would hate to have the card fall apart on me and eat a bunch of pictures.

The timing of this is annoying as I am going camping this weekend and wanted to try out a dual K30 + Q setup, and now I have to buy another memory card to make that happen. However, it's also kind of a blessing in disguise, as I was just about to buy another Eye-Fi card for my Q. I don't think that will be happening though, as this incident has basically shattered my confidence in the product, and really, above all the camera bodies and lenses, it's the pictures we take that are the most important thing in photography (right? ) and I don't want to second guess the reliability of my SD cards.

I'm past the 30 day return mark for Amazon. I think I'm going to contact the Eye-Fi company directly, but I don't think I want another Eye-Fi card because of the confidence issue. A quick Google search shows that Eye-Fi cards on the whole seem to be reliable from a build standpoint as I could not find another documented instance of this happening to another person. Perhaps I just got a lemon (a $99 lemon). But now this post will be showing up when people search for how reliable Eye-Fi cards are and there will be at least one documented instance of an Eye-Fi card falling apart.

One last thing, I should add that the Eye-Fi function performed wonderfully. It took a bit to understand how to set the settings, but once I did it, it became literally a "set it and forget it" scenario. A shame about the body really.

Anyone recommend an alternative Wi-Fi SD card?

EDIT: It is a 16GB Pro X2 model Eye-Fi card.

PICTURES


Last edited by EarlVonTapia; 06-04-2013 at 04:02 PM.
06-04-2013, 03:14 PM   #2
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Hmm....

Any photos you tried to include didn't come through, so it is hard to tell what exactly this is about. That said....

I have 3 EyeFi Cards, and I've had nothing but good experiences with them. Sure, a lemon can exist with all products, but in general I've had no complaints.

Otherwise, I've got a Transcend WiFi card, and that works great also...the Transcend SW for tablets is a bit limited (for example, very limited options for what to do with the downloaded photo...I think Flickr and some other such thing, no SFTP/WebDAV/...), so I use it with ShutterSnitch.

My /impression/ is, that the Transcend WiFi is a notch faster than the EyeFi X2 Pro cards, but that's non-scientific impressions.
06-04-2013, 03:25 PM   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by tclausen Quote
Any photos you tried to include didn't come through, so it is hard to tell what exactly this is about.
The photos aren't meant to be viewed imbedded. You have to click on the links to view them. Let me know if they're still not showing up.

As for reliability, yeah, probably just got a lemon, but it's hard for me to trust this brand now because the SD card is so frigging important to this whole photography thing.

Actually I read in another recent post somewhere else on these forums that someone had a similar issue (body falling apart) with a Transcend card. Maybe this is something that can afflict Wi-Fi cards in general? I wouldn't doubt that, since they probably have more complex guts than a normal card.

And SFTP, Webdav? I just want to push pictures to my phone so I can upload them to my Instagram account on the fly.
06-04-2013, 03:52 PM   #4
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QuoteOriginally posted by EarlVonTapia Quote
The photos aren't meant to be viewed imbedded. You have to click on the links to view them. Let me know if they're still not showing up.
Well, I see no links to click on either, so...

QuoteOriginally posted by EarlVonTapia Quote
As for reliability, yeah, probably just got a lemon, but it's hard for me to trust this brand now because the SD card is so frigging important to this whole photography thing.

Actually I read in another recent post somewhere else on these forums that someone had a similar issue (body falling apart) with a Transcend card. Maybe this is something that can afflict Wi-Fi cards in general? I wouldn't doubt that, since they probably have more complex guts than a normal card.
Well, I have had a top-of-the-line Sandisk SD card fall apart. That doesn't mean that Sandisk is crap, that means that I got a bad apple.

There's no reason to believe that this is something particularly affecting wifi cards.

You got a dud - that happens, move on.

QuoteOriginally posted by EarlVonTapia Quote
And SFTP, Webdav? I just want to push pictures to my phone so I can upload them to my Instagram account on the fly.
Well, we each have different uses for our photos, and different workflows. Mine involves shoving them off to somewhere private and safe.

I don't use all that "social media" stuff, but.....isn't "instagram" that photo-sharing-service-social-network-thing that applies destructive filters rendering the resulting pictures akin to heat-damaged polaroids from the 1960'es? Different workflow, I gather

06-04-2013, 04:13 PM   #5
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QuoteOriginally posted by tclausen Quote
Well, I see no links to click on either, so...
Okay, I just put all the pics into a link at the bottom, which is what I normally do when I make a sale thread. THAT should hopefully work.


QuoteOriginally posted by tclausen Quote
You got a dud - that happens, move on.
Yes, I will just humbly accept my $99 dud and move on. It's still worth discussing about though.


QuoteOriginally posted by tclausen Quote
I don't use all that "social media" stuff, but.....isn't "instagram" that photo-sharing-service-social-network-thing that applies destructive filters rendering the resulting pictures akin to heat-damaged polaroids from the 1960'es? Different workflow, I gather
Those filters are optional. And a lot of photographers/photo companies (small and huge) use Instagram. It's a very easy way to market your works. Not everyone gets it though, and that's fine.

I personally like to keep up with these things.
06-04-2013, 04:25 PM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by EarlVonTapia Quote
Okay, I just put all the pics into a link at the bottom, which is what I normally do when I make a sale thread. THAT should hopefully work.
Now, there's a link. And I clicked. And it seems that the card has been manhandled a bit exactly where it is the most fragile, and that this particular card might just have had a little defect. I've seen that happen - to greater and lesser degrees - on a variety of different cards over the years.

QuoteOriginally posted by EarlVonTapia Quote
Yes, I will just humbly accept my $99 dud and move on. It's still worth discussing about though.
Don't you have something like 1 or 2 years of warranty against manufacturing defects and such?

I do not know where in the world you are, but around here (and, I think in the entire EU) an 1 or 2 year warranty is a legal requirement that the manufacturer/distributor/seller must honor....

QuoteOriginally posted by EarlVonTapia Quote
Those filters are optional. And a lot of photographers/photo companies (small and huge) use Instagram. It's a very easy way to market your works. Not everyone gets it though, and that's fine.

I personally like to keep up with these things.
Oh, I'll be the first to admit that I do not understand social media one iota - that doesn't keep me awake at night, though

I've only seen what instagram's (is that the term?) friends and colleagues have shown me and...hmm...I was given to understand that those "destructive filters" were the raison d'etre for the service. I stand corrected - appreciate the education
06-04-2013, 04:35 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by tclausen Quote
Now, there's a link. And I clicked. And it seems that the card has been manhandled a bit exactly where it is the most fragile, and that this particular card might just have had a little defect. I've seen that happen - to greater and lesser degrees - on a variety of different cards over the years.
Whew, good. I think Dropbox (or perhaps Pentaxforumsbot) doesn't like me linking to individual pics. Folders of pics it is!


QuoteOriginally posted by tclausen Quote
Don't you have something like 1 or 2 years of warranty against manufacturing defects and such?
This is a good idea. I was only thinking about Amazon's return policy, but you're right, I'm sure Eye-Fi (based in the US I think) is bound by some sort of warranty guarantee. I will definitely contact the company now. I might even just send them the card so they can examine it or whatever. It's certainly not going to get any use with my cameras.

QuoteOriginally posted by tclausen Quote
Oh, I'll be the first to admit that I do not understand social media one iota - that doesn't keep me awake at night, though

I've only seen what instagram's (is that the term?) friends and colleagues have shown me and...hmm...I was given to understand that those "destructive filters" were the raison d'etre for the service. I stand corrected - appreciate the education
Heh, no worries. All of these social media things move pretty fast. I'm a big fan of Instagram and social media in general though, but that's discussion for another thread.

06-04-2013, 05:26 PM   #8
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if you can't get it returned/replaced, take the plastic off, clip it off with a nail cliper.

the plastic that's broken is an aesthetic of the sd cards, they are just there for that, the card will still work if you take them off.

Unlike popular belief they are not there to guide the pins inside the camera to the proper position, because if they were there for that, the pins inside the camera would be shorting all the time and we both know that doesn't happend.
don't be scared to carefully take the plastic off.
you're not going to bend or short the pins inside the camera as longs as you're carefull you'll get a fine working card.

If you want to be extra carefull and don't trust your "D.I.Y" solution, get a card reader to test the card before putting it into the camera
I hope everything works out, good luck!
06-04-2013, 10:20 PM   #9
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I've just unpacked a Eye-Fi 16Gb X2 card about ten minutes ago. The booklet says one year warranty. At $100, it should be beyond being a bad luck, throw away outcome. So I'd be seeking a new card from either Amazon or Eye-Fi directly if I were you. In Oz, the reseller is under an obligation to take back defective goods just as much as the manufacturer. Not sure what the US situation is, but you guys seem to have pretty strong consumer protection.

I will be careful inserting my shiny new card though, given your experience.
06-05-2013, 03:45 AM   #10
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QuoteOriginally posted by Akarak Quote
if you can't get it returned/replaced, take the plastic off, clip it off with a nail cliper.
don't be scared to carefully take the plastic off.
you're not going to bend or short the pins inside the camera as longs as you're carefull you'll get a fine working card.
I think the OP has already done that:

QuoteOriginally posted by EarlVonTapia Quote
Despite this problem, it seems that the prongs don't really have any bearing on keeping the gold contacts in place. I snipped them off using nail clippers as close as I could to the body, and the card seemed to function just as normally after that.
06-13-2013, 11:09 AM   #11
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Wow that is not good. I have a card and use it in my K-01. Not all the time, but regularly.
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