Canon Powershot - Low Battery Icon Fix

Recently on my Canon A590 IS Powershot I've had a very annoying problem where even though I'm using full charged batteries I was finding that my camera on a regular basis would flash the red low power icon on the display and would turn off.

Today it got so bad that I only got a couple of photos taken while up in the Lakes, back home checking on the net on causes of the symptoms it seems this is a common problem on alot of Canon models related to the battery contact on the case opening not getting enough contact with the batteries.

 My first attempt at fixing my camera was to bend the connector that goes to -'ve battery, this ended up making it worst as it would only turn on and stay on when the camera was upside down.  But it did prove that battery contact was the problem as the red low battery indicator stopped coming back in my tests when it was upside down and I could tap the camera and it would turn off.

To fix my problem I ended up having to pull the -'ve connector right out of it's slot, as shown below so it's in constant contact with the battery.

I showed my fix to my dad who has the same camera, below is how the battery sits in his camera.  From the picture you can see that the battery is 1-2mm higher than it is in my camera, so it looks like although I've apply a working fix to the contact on the case lid, the actual problem has occurred with the +'ve connector at the other end inside the case - it's lost it's spring feedback.

I'm leaving the fix as it is, will be over the top to take the camera apart to fix the source of the problem.

Update Sept 2011 - Thanks everyone for their comments, I really appreciate how useful you found this post, I've recorded a video (below) of how to do the fix.  You'll see the first few attempts didn't resolve the problem and rather that cut them out I thought I'd keep them in so it's clearer what finally needs to be done.

Sunset from Scout Scar nr Kendal

In a previous post I showed a timelapse of me build a PC, it was done using a Canon A590IS Powershot camera which boots to a temporary firmware version called Chdk, which someone has written a script to allow photos taken at set timings.

Saturday was a clear day so I decided to have a practice of using the sunset script available for Chdk, my plan was to go up to Scout Scar nr Kendal and photograph the sun setting then hopefully the stars becoming visable in the night sky.  Scout Scar is a popular place to Kendalians to go for a walk, there are great views available with little effort.  When I arrived on top of the Scar I did expect to see that the Lyth Valley was hiding under a sea of fog.  This was a spectical I've always wanted to experience but thought I'd would have to get up very early and climb up a mountain.

Timelapse of sunset from Scout Scar nr Kendal overlooking the Lyth Valley, as the valley fills up with fog, look at the hills in the background and you'll see the fog rising.  I didn't get any stars due to the camera pointing west but the fog more than made up for it.

This timelapse to produced using my Canon A590IS booting to chdk firmware with the sunset script. Pictures were taken every 10 seconds for about 1.5hrs, I used the settings recommended for the script in a countryside setting. 344 photos were taken which I converted into a video using virtualdub. 

* CHDK
* Sunset script
* Virtualdub





Also a very rough photo merge of Scout Scar with the Mushroom where on the left of the photo you can see the fogged out Lyth Valley - click for full size

Birdbox - Upgrading the central unit

The camera in our birdbox was connected to a 10 year old PC which just coped with recording the photo stills and the odd video clip but it was showing it's age.  To replace it I was after something small, cheap and low on electric use.  I've built all my PC's over the past 10 or so years mainly for the fun and the knowledge is good for troubleshooting problems.

Costing out parts for a really small unit always came out above my budget because small cases are expensive, I looked at an atom based build for the low wattage draw but was undecided as the atom motherboards didn't offer much flexibility.  Acer have a Atom Revo base unit that would have been ideal as it was so small but in the end I wants to build a new base unit.

So I took the bullet 2 weeks ago and ordered all the parts (not many really) consisting of motherboard, cpu, memory, harddisk, case and wireless keyboard.

Following is a short timelapse of me putting the PC together - as you're see there's not much to it, a little screwing and then connecting wires, biggest surprise is that it runs on 50watts.