Firewire port's a bit iffy.
 

The firewire on my XHA1 is playing up. The connection is intermittent when the cable is plugged in normally. I've found that, by putting an elastic band between the handgrip and the cable, it pulls over to the left and is pretty stable. I'm thinking it's either a dodgy connector or a dry joint. On the side of the camera, by the connectors, there's what looks like an access panel and I hoped it would allow me to get to the connector and take a look. But I've removed all of the screws I can see and it won't come off.

Can anyone offer any advice please? It's not worth trying to get it fixed professionally and I don't want to strip the camera right down if it can be helped.

Re: Firewire port's a bit iffy.
 

Hi, Ray................

Hmm, XHA1. Just pulled mine out of its closet where it's sat for the last 5 years, nothing wrong with it, heaps wrong with me, simply can't use it any longer.

The interface panel (1) you're talking about, on the rear face of the camera, has a panel at 90 degrees to it on the right face of the body just adjacent. Adjacent to that panel (2) are two screws. Removing them does NOT aid in removing said panel (to the uninitiated, at least).

Given the age of the camera and its practical obsolescence, if you're not prepared to cough for Canon to fix it, I'd simply throw in the towel and move on.

Sorry I can't be more help.

Regards,

CS

Re: Firewire port's a bit iffy.
 

Hey Ray,

My XH-A1 is in storage. I had to get it's firewire port repaired twice. Getting an firewire cable with an angled plug seemed to help.

For what it's worth, I watched a pretty good video on how to disassemble the xh-a1 a few years ago. Sorry that I didn't book mark it at the time, but I think this is the one:
If that's not the right video, there are other videos posted that show up in a google search.

Hope this helps.

Re: Firewire port's a bit iffy.
 

Bit of a shame there ain't no audio with that.


CS

Re: Firewire port's a bit iffy.
 

Yeah, looks like ALL of this guy's repair videos no longer have audio. And when you link to his website, a camera repair business, all the sample videos on his site are silent too. Maybe he thought too many people were no longer buying his cows since he'd helped them get milk for free. Or maybe there was a DRM issue in the audio and YouTube stripped the audio. I remember reading a post somewhere about a video of nothing but white noise being flagged for copyright. Certainly the video would be much more helpful with audio. Don't know why it's gone.

Sorry.

Edit: You can read about the White Noise being flagged here on the forum in the Taking Care of Business section.