M240 back from Wetzlar and won't work-- thoughts?

[hockey44]

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Hello, sent my M240 for adjustments to Wetzlar 3 months ago and  plus they discovered some other issues 

Here is what they were going to do:

This is a list of works proposed.
 
Disassembly
Repair rear cover
Repair bayonet ring
Adjust sensor position
Clean sensor
Repair leather / leatherette
Adjust electr. / mech. assemblies
Adg. VF mask / frame line mirror refl.
Clean range finder / view finder
Adjust range finder
Firmware Update
Cleaning
Final inspection

  Upon returning home and fitting charged battery red light flashes 4 times as normal but then remains on and I cannot operate anything.  I can't open menu, see photos on SD card.  Changed SD cards no change.  Removed battery *(80% charged) and then refit and no difference.  Charging spare battery now which was dead and will try that later.

I can't think of what else to try at home....have son's wedding approaching soon and wonder if there is something I am missing here? I rotated the speed dial around and back to A-- no change.

Surely this can't have left Wetzlar without checking but used this for M240 from new for a decade and never had this 'stuck' red light previously?  Any suggestions greatly welcomed.

Thanks

[RayD28]

Sorry to hear of the problems.  Recommend calling Leica to troubleshoot over the phone.  This will take persistence and time because they don't have a bank of support personnel.  If no luck then I'd get a name of a Leica supervisor and tell him about your son's wedding and that you will send the camera to his attention to expedite the repair.  And then call everyday after they get the camera.  Mention your son's wedding each time.  

Unfortunately you are at the mercy of Leica support.   

[pop]

Try an SD card of moderate size (some 8GB or even smaller) which has been freshly formatted to the FAT format (some operating systems call this 'for DOS' or similar). A slower card might be better as it does not consume as much power.

The camera being stuck on the red light might be an indicator for the camera trying to access the card. Have you tried starting the camera without any card at all? It should start up and display an error message about the missing card.

A look into the card slot might be useful, too. Is there any lint or any object in the vicinity of the contacts? Do all the contacts look the same?

[hockey44]

Thanks for suggestions.  When no card  inside body: 1 long red light then goes out BUT NO error message about card missing.  I also tried smaller card and same result--4 quick red flashes and then solid red.....go figure?  Any other hacks I can try?  I have written to Wetzlar and London and am a German speaker so will 'bark' at them on Monday!

I did not see anything in the SD slot. hmmmm

[hockey44]

Good news!  I just charged my spare battery and it WORKS!

The other battery was charged on Leica charger and I will re-charge.  It was showing greater than 80% but causes this problem.  Does that make any sense?  Really crazy...

[dpitt]

5 hours ago, hockey44 said:

Good news!  I just charged my spare battery and it WORKS!

The other battery was charged on Leica charger and I will re-charge.  It was showing greater than 80% but causes this problem.  Does that make any sense?  Really crazy...

If the battery is able to supply the voltage for 80% it will show as charged 80%. When batteries go bad, the current they are able to deliver drops. This one probably has dropped too low... Try charging and discharging a few cycles if possible. Maybe that will fix it. Not sure how to discharge it fully... probably insert it and power up/shut down the camera until the red lights wont come on anymore is the fastest way to discharge it. If you can operate the camera, reviewing and cocking the shutter draws most current, so can be used to discharge the battery.

[pop]

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You should not completely discharge those batteries. Once you do, they're dead.

[tsleica]

When I bought my M240 back in Jan the dealer was having all kinds of problems w/dead batteries that didnt work.

So I just got a brand new battery in addition to 1 older battery that actually worked.

Edited May 7, 2023 by tsleica

[dabrez]

Take a look at a thread from this forum. I posted a reply regarding a battery that would not completely charge and a method to bring it back so it charges to 100%. It may help.

Dave

[Steve Ricoh]

22 hours ago, dabrez said:

Take a look at a thread from this forum. I posted a reply regarding a battery that would not completely charge and a method to bring it back so it charges to 100%. It may help.

Dave

Having read the contribution to the ‘Battery charge percent’ thread, I’m thinking it’s more calibrating the camera than doing much to the battery. I’ve always thought that cycling the charge of the battery between 20%~80% was best for the battery. I can guess how the camera determines % charge, but I have no idea how the designers implemented this in the M240. 

Edited May 23, 2023 by Steve Ricoh

[marchyman]

I thought I had updated that thread, but I guess not.   Eventually that original battery reported less than 50% in camera when the chargers said it was fully, charged.   That was still enough battery power to take lots of images with the M 242, but it wasn't enough to do a software update.  I bought a new battery so I could update the camera to version 1.1.0.0.   No problems with that new battery.  The old battery was simply old.  I kept it as an emergency spare.