marknorton Posted June 17, 2007 Share #1 Posted June 17, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) We've long speculated that the hardware change made when cameras are returned to Solms is relatively minor. It was said that the sensor is not changed and because the sensor is soldered with 60 connections to the sensor board, it's likely the board is not changed either. Take a look at a close up of the sensor board. Sorry about the image quality, it's a crop from one of my wider images. [ATTACH]42071[/ATTACH] The red circles show the pins on the sensor where the precious pixel content appears as the image is read out of the sensor. Clock signals applied to the sensor cause the pixel contents to be presented one after another on each side of the sensor. Each pixel is readable for a fraction of a microsecond, during which time the voltage representing the light level must be sampled and converted to 14 bit digital by the analog to digital converter. Follow the track from this pin and it routes to what looks like a buffered gate - an electronic switch. Then look at the compoents in the cyan circles. These are capacitors and comparing the soldering of these components with others on the board, it seems very likely these have been changed and replaced manually by someone with a steady hand. The soldering is OK, but not as good as the flow soldering you get when the board is first soldered using infra-red heating. [ATTACH]42073[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]42072[/ATTACH] The change of component may have been needed to ensure the gate switches on or off properly or does it sufficiently quickly. Seems likely then that the sensor board in this camera (which did not go back to Solms) is one where the patch has been applied after the board was first made but before it was sent out in a completed camera. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted June 17, 2007 Posted June 17, 2007 Hi marknorton, Take a look here Is this what the hardware recall is all about?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
lars_bergquist Posted June 17, 2007 Share #2 Posted June 17, 2007 I remember reading in an issue of the LFI (Leica Fotografie International) that the problem was indeed with a capacitor on the main sensor board. Here it seems that Leica Camera have changed them all; maybe the lot was below specs. The old man from the Age B.C. (Before Capacitors) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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