A 15-minute capacitor fix took me 3 days to find

Last month a Canon AE-1 came in with the mirror stuck up and the shutter dead. I checked the battery, cleaned the contacts, even swapped the foam bumpers. Turns out a small capacitor on the main board had gone leaky and was dripping onto the trace below. It looked fine until I put a magnifier on it. Anyone else had a slow-burn failure like that hide behind a clean exterior?

2 comments

2 Comments

faith_carter19d ago

Probably corroded the trace underneath without leaving any visible clue on top.

the_oscar18d agoMost Upvoted

@faith_carter nailed it, that's exactly what happened to me on an old receiver. The board looked perfect under a magnifier but the via underneath was eaten through, barely any green left. Pulled out the multimeter and traced it dead end to dead end, had to solder a jumper wire across the gap to fix it. Corrosion creeps along the fiberglass weave, so you can't see it until you start poking at the traces.