Kodak DSU: How to replace internal battery?

[NikonWeb]

Looks like my 'brand new' Kodak DSU isn't working properly

The unit will display the following error message: 'DeadLith'.

According to the manual: 'The lithium battery permanently sealed in the DSU must be replaced; contact Kodak'.

For some reason I don't think Kodak will do this anymore.. Hopefully I can do it myself (with some assistance), but I could use some more details. Anyone?

Thank you.

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Well, there's two possibilities that come to mind. One is that the back-up battery is in a holder, and the other is that it's soldered to the board.

Obviously, one in a holder will be easier to spot as well as to change.

In that era, most of the boards had solder-in lithium back-up batteries. That was the most common kind at the time. The ones that went into holders were pretty large. We did use those in the personal computers, but the portable stuff all used the smaller solder-in type.

The problem is going to be finding the fool thing long-distance. If I had the unit in front of me, I'd stand a much better chance of figuring out which component was the back-up battery.

[NikonWeb]

Hi Stan,

Nathan has one of these units and will take a look at it. Hopefully he'll be able to provide some valuable assistance. I've also posted a question over at Rob Galbraith's site. Kodak cannot offer any assistance whatsoever.

Another thought: Could it be that the internal battery isn't needed when using the AC adapter? I.e. it's only needed for backup when running the unit on battery power? I know it's probably too much to hope for, but it's worth a try. I've had some problems making my AC adapter work, but I'll try to test this later.

Jarle

[NikonWeb]

Good news: The DSU seems to work just fine -- even with a dead lithium battery.

I'm not sure which, if any, practical consequences the dead battery will have, but I've just brought the DSU monitor to life by playing with the 'Video' and 'Menu' buttons. Missing an F3 camera body I can't yet properly test the unit (i.e. take photos with it), but I have a good feeling it's all going to work just fine

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

The lithium battery is used to supply power to static RAM when the master power is off. I'd think that all that's used for are option settings and the time-of-day clock.

So, I'd say that once you set tht thing up the way you like it, and then power it off, those settings (and the TOD) are lost and have to be re-set when it's powered up again.

So, no big deal given that you're not going to be using the thing day-in and day-out.

Stan

[NikonWeb]

So, no big deal given that you're not going to be using the thing day-in and day-out.

Hi Stan,

I hope you're right. Question: Any risk that the battery will start to leak at some point? Should I try to have it removed (or replaced) or should I just leave it in there?

Thanks,
Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Well, I suppose there's a possibility of the cell leaking, although I have yet to see a lithium cell leak in all these years. Personally, I'd not worry about removing it based soley on a fear of leakage. I think it's more likely that harm will befall the thing from going after the battery than from the battery itself.....

Stan

[nik0web]

I recently purchased a DSU on eBay, I thought it would fix a missing piece of a partial set. My camera is a DC-3 version of the DCS 100. It was junk! An excellent candidate to take apart. The HDD, switches for the front panel, memory and the CPU were all missing. All the screws were taken out and thrown inside the unit. I read this thread and figured I'd check out the battery and report to you.

To begin with I couldn't get into the unit because the coax connector prevented the inside assembly from sliding past the outer plastic case. I resolved that by forcing the plastic outer case with a long screw driver. The inside looks very much like an old desktop computer. The bottom is taken up by a motherboard with 9 connectors for "expansion cards". In the back is the (missing) hard drive in this case a 32MB according to a note on the side of the unit. The drive connectors are a standard 50 pin SCSI and a standard power connector. I plugged a SCSI terminator into the drive plug and a power splitter into the power connector to prove compatibility.

There are three DC to DC converters to create the various voltages, all on the motherboard. A standard HDD would be supllied 5 volts and 12 volts. There is a harness crossing between the HDD and the cards running from the AC Adapter plug to a sawed off looking standard motherboard power plug. The battery wiring is also connected to this same connector.

Connected to each of the plugs on the side of your DSU case is a seperate card which plugs into the expansion slots. The only ones left are a Video Bd, a contol panel bd ( right behind the control panel itself). Also an Interface Bd (camera connector) Serial IO bd ( Keyboard and modem plugs) and an untitled board with the SCSI connector attached. I would also assume there is also a missing CPU board and a Memory card. I don't know whether the buffer and necessary computer memory are on the same card. As I said there are nine slots, I have 5 cards.

I put 3 pictures up at:
http://www.ibestpix.com/ebay/KodakDCS100/01.jpg

To see the other two just increment the file number by one. In addtion should you need more resolution I put the originals, cropped, up with the same number with a b after the number as in:

http://www.ibestpix.com/ebay/KodakDCS100/03b.jpg

Getting back to the original battery subject I don't see the battery or the clock anwhere. I assume it may be on the CPU card if that's what it's called.

I appreciate the info you guys put out so added what I could to help out. If you need any help or specific pictures let me know.

[Stan Disbrow]

hi,

Kwel!

No, I don't see it there, either. I'd expect it to be on the processor card, though, so this is not a surprise.

Looks like a pretty easy unit to work on, though. I haven't seen something that nice to the repair tech in a long, long time.

Stan

[NikonWeb]

Hi nik0web,

Thanks for the info and photos. I agree with Stan. Looks like a nice unit to work on. I'm not too worried about the battery.

I still haven't been able to make the DSU communicate with Windows/SCSI card. Admittedly, I haven't tried very hard. Hopefully, one of these days, I'll be able to get some test shots into my PC and put the DSU back in its case. Ah, the joys of vintage DSLR collecting!

Jarle

[pfraser]

Stan Disbrow

No, I don't see it there, either. I'd expect it to be on the processor card, though, so this is not a surprise.

Yes, it is on the processor card. It's a QTC85. soldered in with three connections. I have one arriving from Amazon next week (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000A0 ... e&n=172282), and it looks fairly easy to replace. On my DCS, the SRAM also stores a few options, as well as the date and time. One thing to watch is the file storage. Mine defaults to RAM storage, and there's no way to transfer to disk after you've taken a photo, so rmember to set "store to disk" each time you switch it on.

[nik0web]

Jarle

Having not yet gotten a DCS 100 to work I'm not much of an expert and have delayed posting a reply to your Windows/SCSI concerns.

I did a lot of thinking about the SCSI connection. From all my reading the camera is a Mac oriented device so if you try to read the harddrive it's not likely to be a "FAT" file system device. If it's formatted for a MAC when you try to read it with Windows/DOS it'll look like an unformatted drive. I think what you have on the drive interface is 2 controllers both attached to the same drive. On one end of the cable is a controller in the DSU, the other end of the cable has a controller in your computer if attached. I've connected two seperate PC's to one drive simultaneously in the past. What's important here is to remember that there has to be a controller in the DSU to write/read the drive. However I think it should be possible to read the drive only with the computers controller. I would assume the DSU controller is MACcentric.

However, if while you're booting you see the text while going thru POST you should see the SCSI cards bios scan the SCSI interface looking for drives. That scan should detect the drive if it's got power, got a good pcb, on a good interface, regardless of what's on the surface of the disk.

If during the boot you only see a Vendors splash screen prior to the Windows splash screen you need to get into the CMOS which is probably the delete key right after power on.

Like I said before I'm hardly an expert so just take this for thinking fodder.

John

[pfraser]

nik0web

I did a lot of thinking about the SCSI connection. From all my reading the camera is a Mac oriented device so if you try to read the harddrive it's not likely to be a "FAT" file system device. If it's formatted for a MAC when you try to read it with Windows/DOS it'll look like an unformatted drive.

I have not looked at this aspect of the DCS yet, so I only know about the DCS-200. There are two SCSI interfaces, one to the disk and the other to the computer. There is no provision to mount the disk on a computer. Rather, the SCSI interface is just considered a high bandwidth link to transfer images to the computer through the Kodak software. There is no file system of any kind on the disk (FAT or HFS). It's just considered a bunch of data.

[NikonWeb]

As far as I can tell, the DSU should work equally well with both PC's and Mac's. Both systems are described in the original DCS manual, and my kit came with both PC and Mac software. Unfortunately, the DSU isn't detected at all.

Hopefully, I'll have some spare time next week. I'll try again, and see if I can make it work.

Jarle

[pfraser]

Pete Fraser

Yes, it is on the processor card. It's a QTC85. soldered in with three connections. I have one arriving from Amazon next week

Oh well. The Amazon part doesn't fit. It's 1.25" diameter rather than 1" (as required). Back to the drawing board.