jonnyapple said:
I had to look up bglod. Yes, I was saying I would have opened it up, but I see now that I was also opening myself up for lawsuits or hate mail. That's great that you got it working. So, did the bglod happen after opening it up? I love troubleshooting and I'd like to know what you did to get rid of it if you feel like explaining (it might happen to me some day, right?).
I have found this site pleasantly free of hate mail, enough so that I have considered commenting on it in a post. As far as a law suit, I figure if I just say what I did, I should be OK. I did not suggest anyone else do it.
Yes, the bglod did happen when I put it back together the first and second times. It was caused by me not fully seating three flexible printed circuit (FPC) connectors. There are two that connect the body to the back, and you have to disconnect them. They have a clamping latch in the connector in the back. You have to lift the little black latch, and pull out the FPCs. When you put it back together, you have to push the flexible circuit back into the female connector on the back, then push the latch down. I found it difficult to push in far enough, and resorted to using tweezers to push in on each side, rocking it in. This was the wider of the two connectors.
The flexible connector has two rows of contacts, and if you don't push it in far enough, then they don't contact the pins they should. They may very well short pins together or connect to the wrong things, and you might run the risk of damaging your IC's in the camera by making this mistake. Mine lived, but I am obligated to say you may kill your camera doing this. Handling the flexible connector, and pushing it in by hand or with tweezers, you risk cracking the circuit traces and ruining it.
If you should decide to do this anyway, then before you disconnect these connectors, you should take note of the position of the back side of the heavy brown strip at the end of the FPC, and note its position relative to the metal ground plate behind and under it, the back edge should just line up with the plate. If it overlaps it, then it is not in far enough.
Be warned that when handling the camera with the covers off, you will be exposing the printed circuit boards. If you don't take proper cautions to prevent static discharge, you could damage your camera from static buildup in your body, your chair, or whatever.
There is a third flexible connector you have to remove, and it connects the camera body to the top plate. It is easier to get to, and is the one that I used to figure out just how far the connector really needs to be seated in order to be correct.
The screw used to hold the camera together are all different lengths, and you must keep track of where each one goes when they are removed. If you remove the front cover and the top, then you expose the flash capacitor, which will be charged to maybe 300 volts of so, and is dangerous. It should be discharged when you remove the front cover.
All things considered, I don't recommend anyone else try this. You could easily damage your camera or get zapped by the flash capacitor. An experienced Nikon repairman should be able to repair or replace the flash latch mechanism in a few hours.
