Hi, I recently purchased an Olympus AZ-210 Superzoom, but it wouldn't turn on. So I opened it and I found that a component of the mother board is burnt. I was wondering if anybody could help me find out which component is it, because before surrendering, I wanted to give it a shot and try to repair it. I hope that is repairable. I thank all of you in advance that could help me with this. Have a good day!
LucaView attachment 371299
To repair it, you will need a spare part from another AZ-210. But before you use it, you should find out why the component burned out in order to fix the cause.
For an electronic component to burn out, it needs an excess of current. From the looks of things, I would suspect an overload caused by the operating voltage. Perhaps you can find out something about that?
Does anybody know if it could be a transistor? I'm new on camera repairing, so I might be wrong. I thank you all for the support.
In addition, I saw on ebay another AZ-210 for spare parts with the same problem that won't turn on: I suspect that is due to the fact that the owner left the batteries inside for too long without using the camera and it might have caused the damage.
Does anybody know if it could be a transistor?
Yes, this is quite possible. It could be this one: FP1L3N this is a PNP switching transistor for low-current applications. You'll find a datasheet e.g. here: https://www.renesas.com/us/en/produ...ors/fp1l3n-built-resistor-bipolar-transistors
There's also a STO23-package (that's how it's officially called) with 'S34' marking that contains a double diode, but it's kind of a niche product and wouldn't make all that much sense in a camera. A PNP transistor on the other hand is a perfectly likely candidate.
However, @Andreas Thaler is correct in that you need to track down the source of the problem. This transistor wouldn't have burnt out spontaneously, and too low battery voltage for too long a time doesn't sound like a sensible cause either. A schematic would indeed be very helpful, but I'd start by poking around with a continuity tester and just visual inspection to figure out what it is that this transistor is supposed to switch, and then see if you can use that knowledge to track down the defect. On that note - where does the green wire lead to? Is that connected to the base (top right pin) of the transistor? And does the bottom pin (the one that's alone on its side) go to the ULN217 motor driver/bridge by any chance? I suspect the mystery part may be part of the power-on circuit that cuts power from the battery to most of the circuitry when the camera is turned off.
Without further information, my wild guesses would go in the direction of:
1: A stuck DC motor that draws excessive current as a result of being stuck. However, I'd expect either of the UN217 H-bridges to have died as well. Nonetheless, it's conceivable that the burnt part switched power to the UN217 it's close to and that the transistor simply burnt out before the UN217 suffered any damage. Their maximum ratings are quite close, with a slight advantage to the UN217.
2: A (very) leaky capacitor somewhere, possibly a tantalum type, that effectively acts as a dead short. This is fairly likely given the age of the camera and the need for miniaturization (tantalum caps are space efficient). Look for any capacitor that is polar; especially small square ones with a clear band or plus sign on either end are suspect.
PS: note that you can't just replace the FP1L3N with any other PNP transistor with the same pinout and similar or better ratings, since the FP1L3N has the somewhat unusual property of having the base current limiting resistor and a pullup resistor integrated into it. Most PNP transistors don't have this; if you dropped in a pin-compatible part, you'd virtually certainly burn out something; possibly this one, possibly an even more difficult to tackle component.
The green wire was attached to the pin very near to the transistor(the bottom one)
Are you sure; have you verified this with a continuity tester? I do see via, but I don't see a connection to the component's pad.
I have a suspicion that the large copper pour that the pink wire connects to does go to the bottom right pin on the transistor.
Like this:
View attachment 371321
Knowing where this pin goes would probably be the most useful clue as to what the function is of this transistor and how to troubleshoot related problems:
View attachment 371322
a perfectly circular bulge that was making direct contact with the transistor
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