"EXhausted Battery" indication

John AR

New member
Kit D7200/18-140 worked perfectly. Then I stored my D7200 for a few months while I was away. Removed lens and battery and stored all in original packing.
Reassembled everything a couple of days ago, re-charged the battery, put in new 64Gb Sandisk cards and formatted them. Normal operation, took one picture and deleted it.
Next time I wanted to switch it on an hour or so later, it showed the "exhausted" battery symbol and would not switch on. Thinking the battery was dead after long storage I ordered two new batteries, charged them and put them in the camera. Neither of them would work and the camera still would not switch on and showing the "exhausted" battery icon. That's three batteries, two new and still not switching on. Am I missing something ?
 

nickt

Senior Member
Try gently wiping the battery contacts inside the camera with a cotton swab and some alcohol. A dry swab would probably be ok if you don't have alcohol on hand.
Does the charger appear to behave properly? Flashing light that changes to steady after 90 minutes or less? Is there a camera store or a friend where you could try another known good battery?
For lack of another battery... Try warming up a battery in your hands or hold it out in the warm sun for a few minutes. Don't leave it unattended, you just want to raise the temp 10 degrees or so. Try it in the camera while it still feels warm. If the camera powers up, that might indicate your charger is not charging. Raising the battery temperature can give you a few more milivolts, letting the camera power on for a few seconds. All this will really tell you is that your camera is probably good and all 3 batteries are not charging for some reason.
I'm already leaning towards your camera is good. If it failed in storage, I don't think you would have gotten the brief power up that you did. As unlikely as it seems, I'm betting on batteries not charging. But don't spend more money based on my guess. :)
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Welcome aboard. Enjoy the ride.
We look forward to seeing more posts and samples of your work.

I agree with Nickt's suggestions. I would add to also try cleaning the charger contacts. Also, I would suggest trying your batteries in another camera.
 

John AR

New member
Thank you Nickt. I have cleaned all the contacts as you suggest, I also used a tiny artiists brush to make sure there is no lint or dust between the terminals. I have done this for all three batteries, the original and the two new ones.
The charger appeared to work properly, initial charging with flashing light for a couple of hours until the light is steady. Subsequent attempts to charge take only about 10 minutes each. Next step will be to visit a camera store to see if they have compatible models to try.
I'm not sure about the warming up, the ambient temperature here is in the very high 30's celcius so I'm not going to get much more heat into the batteries.
Interesting to note that when I insert a battery, the green "busy" light flashes for a couple of seconds as I would expect it to and also the LCD display back light will illuminate if requested, so I feel that there is charge in the batteries. But it still will not switch on and shows the dead battery symbol.
Thanks for the suggestions, maybe I need to find the Nikon service centre tomorrow.
 

John AR

New member
Thanks Bikerbrent. Tried the cleaning, see my answer to Nickt. Next is to find a camera store to test batteries and camera independently.
 

nickt

Senior Member
I was hoping it was the batteries or charger, but the charger sounds like it is behaving. If you haven't already tried, remove the lens and memory card. I've seen memory cards hang up the camera, but I have not seen them cause the low battery alert so I don't have high hopes. Good luck.
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
One final scary though. I am assuming that Bangkok is a pretty humid area. If so, it is possible their is corrosion in the camera from the long term storage. I'll cross my fingers that this is not the case.
 

John AR

New member
This morning I went out to the local camera shop, tried a new battery there with exactly the same result. Four batteries now, same result, kind of rules out a battery problem.
Just tried naked body, no lens, no cards: no change. Good try though.
I guess tomorrow I have to find the Nikon repair centre. I'll post the result. Hoping it's something simple though as I am off on a major expedition in a couple of weeks, should have checked the camera before now.
Thanks for trying.
 

John AR

New member
Yes, it's very humid here as well as hot. But the camera is only three years old and is used mostly indoors and when I was away for a few months I packed it away carefully in all the original packing so I hope it's not corrosion.
The mystery is that when I first reassembled it a few days ago it worked perfectly for one test shot, switched it off and a little later, this !
 

spb_stan

Senior Member
It still can be battery contact oxidation in the Camera. Cleaning contacts is the wrong term for what needs to be done periodically. Metal exposed to atmospheric oxygen oxidizes to a few molecules thick normally and the resulting oxide of the metal is an insulator. Switch contacts, connectors and bare wires all oxidize and that actually protects the contact from further deeper oxidation but still allows current to flow if the oxide layer is not very deep. But when a contact is exposed for a while and in humid conditions that oxide layer of insulation can grow to be thick enough to not allow the current to jump through the insulating oxide layer. That could be your problem. The solution, in that case, is using a small about of de-oxiding chemical that strips the extra oxygen from the upper layers and returns the metal to conductivity. One popular chemical for that is DeOxit from Craig Laboratories and another is Cramolin ContactClean but another version is D-5 from the same company but in other regions of the world.

Another possible cause is the memory that uses a small amount of current to maintain the settings when off, a battery in older units or a capacitor in newer one, make be depleted. If that is the case put a battery in it and do a 2 button reset which will return the camera to the factory default settings. Some data is written to eeProm memory and is not impacted, such as shutter count.

To restoring Nikon D7200 to its default settings, just hold down the [ISO button] button and the [+/- Exposure Compensation button] together, until the control panel turns off briefly while the camera resets itself to the factory default settings. For a dead camera, hold those two buttons while the camera is off and then turn it on while holding the buttons down for 5-10 seconds.
 

John AR

New member
Thank you spb_stan. I have done all of that with no change in the result. Thanks for your suggestions anyway.

Yesterday I took the camera to the local Nikon service centre. On quick examination they suspect a problem with the mother board. So now they will do a detailed examination and diagnosis which will take about a week. Then a repair will take another two to three weeks as parts will need to be imported from Singapore. All this puts my upcoming expedition at risk, I am due to depart in three weeks. I know I should have checked out the camera before now but it's only three years old and has not been used much. Let's hope it is not quite so drastic.

Thanks everybody for your help and advice. It's now up to Nikon.
 

John AR

New member
Nikon say they have to replace: "togo pcb unit, rear rubber unit" and it will cost normally $400 but discounted to $200 as this is a "local warranty" ! Not very good for a 3-year-old camera which has had only limited use.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Nikon say they have to replace: "togo pcb unit, rear rubber unit" and it will cost normally $400 but discounted to $200 as this is a "local warranty" ! Not very good for a 3-year-old camera which has had only limited use.
The TOGO PCB is the camera's motherboard or, essentially, damn near everything electronic in the body; which is a lot. You could probably source a replacement for less than $100 but I'm guessing Nikon has decided (for whatever reason) not to charge you either for the part, or the labor.

I'm curious what they mean by "local warranty", though... That's a new one on me.
 

John AR

New member
Me too, didn't understand "local warranty" as the original warranty was only one year. The receptionist said that since the camera was purchased here it qualifies as a local and therefore gets discount on repairs. Thought she said 15% but turns out to be 50% (my poor translation). On the quotation it lists the parts as $250 and labour $150 then discounted. Also includes cleaning service. Just hope they can do it in time for my expedition.
 

Marilynne

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Since it's under "local warranty", ask if they will give you a loaner if the repair isn't completed before your trip. Can't hurt.
 
Last edited:

John AR

New member
Hi Marilynne, naturally I asked but they only give loaners to professionals and that I am not. I live in hope that they will come through in time.
 

spb_stan

Senior Member
I was a moderator for a large Nikon community and service questions came to me usually and more often than not, the reset, even if having to do it 10 times in a row was a remedy for long stored camera bodies. The main board is generally very reliable and it is rare that a general failure is encountered but since camera techs are not familiar with electronics, a common $0.01 part failing means the entire $200 board is replaced.
I had an SB900 speedlight that failed and still under warranty. The warranty shop said it needed the main processor board and it would not be under warranty because it showed signs of being dropped. It hadn't been and was in pristine condition, only 3 months old. I took it back instead of paying the $360 estimate. I opened it up and found a 10ufd capacitor had shorted. I had many so replaced it and that was 10 years ago and it is still used daily. Basically it comes down to: if it is not found to be mechanical, all techs replace the largest assembly even if it is not the problem because there are few diagnostic tests they have available to find out what the problem cause really is. If you see a repair bill with parts list that includes many parts replaced to affect a repair you can tell they "shotgunned it" meaning kept replacing assemblies until it solved the problem.

It is not really their fault, there are too many specialized skills and diagnostic equipment needed to really determine the true cause of modern electronics. I have a full electronics lab in my home and can hunt problems to the actual cause but don't have the mechanical jigs to solve camera hardware problems so I can see how as a business it is darned hard to match the technical skills required and the task value. Mechanical systems have the added issue of wear and tear so some parts that work but are out of tolerance should be replaced even if they showed no symptoms. Electronics does not have that issue.
Here is a shot of my home lab in a spare bedroom here in my city center apartment in St Petersburg. I brought all this and more one piece at a time in my luggage from California every time I went home for a visit. Since this photo was taken 3 more pieces of test instruments have been added

shop-bench1.jpg
 

John AR

New member
Yes spb_stan, that was me 40 or more years ago. More easily done when most electronic stuff was discrete components, now with everything super-miniaturised and all on one tiny board, the only economic way is to replace the whole board. Almost everything these days has a "mother" board and swapping that out is the first line of defence.
Still no word on my D7200 yet and we have two long holiday weekends in a row so I'm still sweating out the wait.
 

John AR

New member
Good news, got my D7200 back today with new MB, cleaned and working perfectly and proved that my batteries and SD cards were not the cause of the problem (they couldn't tell me what actually caused the problem). All is well and the return is in good time for my upcoming expedition. Cost $200 exactly as quoted.
Many thanks to everybody who helped and sympathised with my problem.
 
Top