I have a 40D which I purchased new back in 2007. It has been a great camera but ended up taking a back seat to my 1Dx for several years. Just recently I got it out of storage and attempted to use it. Unfortunately it is no longer powering up, everything is completely dead. The first thing I thought of was the battery however it appears to be OK as it charged from roughly 50% up to 100% in a few hours. Even with a full charge the camera does not power up. I then thought perhaps that date / time battery was bad and ended up replacing it with a brand new one with the same results. The camera is completely dead, there is no activity. Does anyone have any idea what might be the problem? I have thought about replacing the main battery with a cheap knock (to keep diagnostic costs down) off to see if the battery is the problem but want to check with others who may be familiar. The camera was stored in a cool, dry environment (the closet of my office) with the primary battery removed during storage. It's in excellent condition and was my first true dSLR camera that has some sentimental value to me.
Welcome to the canon Forum, Canon Guy, may I suggest clean the battery contacts as they can tarnish over time and you get a poor electrical contact. Now onto your 1DX, I have the earlier 1Dmark3 built like a brick outhouse but a very cool camera, having never seen or used one a 1DX, I could only image it has a more modern shape and feel.
Thanks Craig. The battery contacts are in pristine condition but to be certain I used some IPA to clean them per your suggestion. No change.
Always the first place to look, now my next suggestion is youtube and see what is there, you may have to pull the camera apart and look for defective parts or get the camera serviced, drawback is the cost, a replacement camera will most likely be cheaper, I have a 10D which I really liked but it now sits in a box of similar cameras.
Thanks again Craig. In your experience do you have any idea why a working camera would stop working merely from lack of use over a period of years? Typically failures result from batteries which have leaked or become corroded, neither of which is the case here. Other electronics failures I've seen are capacitors which dry out and / or leak. Do you know if Canon cameras of the 40D period were susceptible to the capacitor issues seen earlier in that decade?
Looking at the age of the camera, I think you have hit the nail on the head, this would have been my thoughts on the problem too. My background is as a mechanical fitter by trade, so the analog aspects of the camera I understand, in the electronic parts I refer to my boarder at my home whose background is electronics and tends to talk way too much about this issue. I have a 50D which worked for until about 4 moths ago and just stopped working, possibly the same issue.
You can certainly try a new battery, as the battery could be showing a charge but not really have any capacity. They don't even continue to produce that BP-511 Battery anymore, so its all old stock or 3rd party brands. I also agree that if its not working with a battery and you cleaned contacts in camera and on the battery... there is not much you can do without it being tore open and serviced, which costs more than the value of the camera at this point. May be time to set it up on the self as paper weight unfortunately , the electronics can act up over time. Seems 15 years is about the drop off, plenty of 10 year old cameras still going but the early ones start having button failures and other such issues after years of use. Actually, that may be an issue, your on off switch may have a loose or corroded wire on the inside of the camera. Give it a love tap on the table and see if it works before shelving it.
The camera is now working after a second round of battery contact cleaning. I was searching the Internet for others experiencing the same problem and came across a discussion where the user cleaned the contacts and the problem remained. After a second cleaning their camera came back to life. I figured there's no harm in doing it again. The only difference is that I also cleaned the batteries contact surfaces too. My advice to anyone who may be experiencing this problem is to try cleaning the battery contacts a second time. It work for the user in the thread I discovered and it worked for me too. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions! BTW I did watch some YouTube videos on disassembling the camera. It doesn't look like something I would want to undertake. If I couldn't get it working I was going to send it in to Canon for repair.
