Freaking out, but good
 

Well, I find it tragic that I'm in this thread. I'd never heard of this problem until it smacked me in the face. I was prepping equipment to fly out MONDAY. I write this on Saturday night.

While I had a lot of equipment out, since I was checking a micro 35 and a couple of XLs, I only (foolishly it's clear) plugged in the standard viewfinder on an XL2. Poof. No power. Absolutely the first time this has happened in years of XL use. And at the perfect storm time.

I don't know how the rest of you feel, but the idea that a non user-changeable fuse can blow so easily is patently outrageous and furthermore the very definition of jiveass. These cameras are not inexpensive little toys and I'm at a total loss as to action. I'm sure Canon couldn't care less that I have organized a benefit show in the middle of the South Pacific thinking I'd use my XLs as part of the camera stable.

GGGGGGrrrrrrrrrr.

Okay. I apologize. I do wish the fuse (I do like fused protection of electrical circuits) could be replaced easily and was somewhat common. Even better would have been hearing here that some simple little overlooked item was at fault. BTW: I have had nothing like this happen all the way back to my first XL in 2000. Now I'm being redundant and will sign off.

Having read about the numorous electrical problems being experianced with the XL2's, I am reluctant to hook my XL2 up to a flywire cable,or any other cable come to that.I use my JVC camcorder as a slave when down loading material through the fire wire.This is a fantastic camera, but if there is a weakness in the system,Canon should upgrade the system and retrofit the upgrade free of charge to all XL2 owner's.This is not a cheap camera to purchase and owners should not have to worry about the thing failing .The last thing anybody wants, is to loose the camera to a service centre for days or weeks, especialy during a busy shoot.

I can't wait to see what the damage report is on your XL2 Lucinda.I hope it is just a fuse.

Do I still want one?

question...
 

I guess the lesson here is pretty clear... don't so much as look at an XL2 without turning it off first.

Though I've yet to actually encounter this problem, the stories just keep pouring in. I'm afraid to touch the camera.

I wonder if this easily fried fuse is a "feature" of older cameras, or if the newer ones are rolling off the assembly line with the same issue right now. Maybe Canon quietly fixed the problem in later cameras; maybe not. To all of you who have come up against this: how old is your camera?

This is getting a bit humorous, even tho' believe me I know it isn't!

Well, my XL2, as I mentioned I think, is the second one that I got because the first had a bad 20X lens, so my wonderful dealer traded that in for this one...and shameful to say: I haven't hardly used it...made one doc about an artist, and some last summer, it's about 10 months old and very very new in terms of use. I just started a new film and have all my time for my work now...yea! but, alas, my XL2 is in the shop and who knows how many times this will occur?

I do have a great idea and it could be a solution to this problem. Since a number of people seem to have a power out situation: contact Canon and register your chagrin about this. I believe if they get enough people telling them about this issue that they will do something about it. Canon is a good company and they already know as I said before, I'm sure they know about this issue.

Anyway, the fellow I spoke with at the Customer Center in Irvine, CA, encouraged me to contact Customer Service about this and tell them about it. When I told him that I doubted it would do any good, he said I was wrong and that if enough people call or write, or email with this problem that they will correct it.

You may wonder: well, how would that help me? it would because the problem has to be recognized as a true issue with the XL2 and not just customer usage errors.

We can do this! let's try to make Canon improve on this wonderful camcorder if indeed this is something that does need improvement and I have to say honestly that I'm not sure yet. But, it seems that a number of people have this problem......

I got my XL2 back on Friday and worked with it yesterday. All is well I'm happy to report. Unfortunately, I left the invoice which explained which parts were damaged at the Irvine Center and will have them send it to me, or email it to me, so that I have that information. But, what I learned was that a fuse did blow due to a faulty/defective part and this caused other elements to fry as well, so rather than just doing cold solders of those areas they replaced two large components and those parts are listed on the piece of paper I neglected to take when I left....it took me so long to get there that I was not operating at top potential for sure...anyway: I was told that the problem was due to a defective part and had nothing to do with anything I did in working with the camcorder. That was a major relief! and I have to say that I am very pleased with Canon's support and care.

Yesterday, I plugged the XL2 and tv monitor into a power surge strip. I noticed at one point a line going down the tv monitor, almost like a wave, but parallel waves, straight horizontal lines not wavy. I was very concerned about this. I rewound the tape and there was no evidence on the tape of any lines--I thought perhaps something was wrong with the tape.

However, I'm still wondering about not so much power surges, but the opposite. We have two air conditioners a pump outside for the water and other appliances and at times when the main ac comes on we get a dimming of lights for a brief moment...I was wondering if that was happening--a power depletion rather than a surge--when the lines appeared on my video monitor. I didn't see any lights dimming or my ac in the studio hesitating so I'm not sure that was even happening. Yet, I wonder: could this be problematic for the XL2? Nothing seemed to happen to indicate that there was any problem with the camcorder. However, I'm wondering if I should use the battery pack instead of plugging the XL2 into the power strip? Anyone with any advice about this? Also, would that make any difference since the XL2 is connected to the video monitor with the rca cables and the video monitor is connected to the power strip?

The Canon rep told me that the support tech who worked on the camcorder said that I had nothing to do with this power outage problem--that it was a defective part which caused other components to blow....but I still wonder about the above, if it could ever be a potential problem even if it wasn't before.....

Thank you, Lucinda, for sharing your experience and problem. This makes me a little less apprehensive about buying the XL2. I am really curious to know about the others in this forum that experienced a power loss and what Canon says is wrong with their cams.

Lucinda, it may not hurt to get one or a couple of the "no-name" 945 batteries off eBay (usually around $20) if you are really concerned about power fluctuations.

If you don't mind spending a little extra $$, get a large UPS (Uninteruptable Power Supply) from your local Best Buy, Office Depot, etc. Run your computer, camera, and essential PC add-ons (printer is not essential) off the conditioned/powered outlets. A 1500 watt XPS from APC should only set you back $180 (or less). This will compensate for surges, blackouts, and brownouts (loss of power when the AC kicks on or due to electrical storms or heavy loads on the power station).

I use 2 rack mount BR1500XRS units in my home office at the bottom of my rack and power everything from them, even my 19" cheapo TV I use for real time preview during editing.

They run for quite some time if the power does go out and keep a consistent flow to all of my gear (even during brownouts). I have one hooked up to the a USB port on my workstation that keeps reports of all the times it has had to intervene - thankfully, not very often where I live now, but VERY frequently when I lived in Birmingham.

Hi Chris,

I use a dual battery pack mounted on the back of my XL2, have been all along and I use the ASB surge protector for my computer equipment. In fact, I was using it yesterday out in the studio when the wave stuff happened on the video monitor.....so I still wonder what that was. What I asked in the previous post was if the XL2 is powered using my battery pack and the video monitor is still DC will the XL2 be safe from power surges and depletions?

Just as a related curiosity
 

Whats the longest anyone has had an xl2? And whats the most amount of use in terms of shooting hours? Anyone care to chime in?

David

Also..
 

Twould have been nice if we could have gotten a sense from the tech as to how often these "defective" parts occur in the xl2. Is this a rare thing or a more common one?

I suppose its doesn't matter. It will either happen or it wont and if it does it'll need to get fixed. Its nice to know that they _can_ and are _willing_ to fix it without blaming the operator.

David

This is a good question and one I forgot to ask...how often does this happen? I'm waiting to get the invoice from Canon which will explain what happened and then I'll mention all.

One thing that Chris at the Owner's Club mentioned was that power drops or surges won't affect the XL2 because the AC adapter has a fuse in it that will kick off if there are any problems due to uneven current and that will happen before anything occurs in the XL2. So that adapter has this safety feature for power surges and drops.

I was concerned that our power drops here could have caused the problem I had and he said the above, and also that what happened to my unit was a faulty/defective internal part...the control transport was defective which shorted out other circuits, so they put in a new mother board/PCB and replaced the chassis.

Since I haven't seen the inside of an XL2, I don't know what the Control Transport is? anyone take a guess or know?

And, perhaps if others have had this happen they could respond....I doubt that this is something that has happened to a lot of users, but I can't answer that.

I do know that there's much pressure on tech people and engineers who make these parts....perhaps the pressure has hurt the overall standards of product perfection....

However, as I mentioned before, I was very pleased with the care that Canon provided. They could have simply soldered the parts and done a "used XL2," job, but they put new parts in, hopefully insuring a safe unit for the future.

I do recommend that everyone joins the Owners Club. You get speedier service and that can really help.

Non Stock XL2 viewfinder = No power
 

So I got bit by this bug today.

I had a viewfinder issue on a different camera and while troubleshooting without thinking that it'd be an issue, I plugged it into my XL2 and poof! No power!

Which engineer do I need to thank for putting a standard plug on a non standard output? My boot would like to meet with his butt. Oh yeah... the engineer that puts a main fuse that's apparently easy to blow in a non user serviceable spot too!

Does anyone know what Cannon will pop me for $$$ wise for this kind of repair?

Ouch
 

That sucks. So there is a problem, then, beyond the faulty part that Lucinda was experiencing. Is this confirmation of the viewfinder frying XL2s rumor?

I can't say 100% for sure, but it seems so to me.

This was a non-standard viewfinder for the XL2 (it was from a JVC GY-HD100u). My JVC came back from a firmware update and I reattached my VF (they asked that the VF not be shipped with the camera) and I get nothing in my finder on the JVC, so in an effort to isolate which component was bad I thought i'd try my JVC finder on the XL2 and the XL2 finder on the JVC.

As the plugs/ports look and are identical I thought they'd be interchangeable. I slapped a battery on my XL2 and it was working fine. I swapped out the viewfinder and tried flipping on the Cannon. Nothing else changed and poof, no power anywhere on the Cannon.

As an aside the Cannon VF doesn't work on the JVC either.

There is a possibility that the JVC VF has some sort of short in it that would cause it to blow out both cameras, but it WAS working fine when I took it off of the camera before I sent it in and it sat on my desk untouched for a week, so I doubt it broke just sitting there.

You mixed the canon and jvc viewfinders?????? i'd say that would do it, there's no way that you can blame canon for such a mistake!