Doug_Kiesling
Ok, I'll admit it, I beat on my gear (but not as bad as Dan... :lol: )
My PD-170 started flaking out during Tropical Storm Alberto and I thought I fried another camera. Turns out their is a slight defect in the Sony VX Cameras as well as the PD camera where the battery unit is in the handle for the memory and if condinsation or moisture get's in there it can really mess it up.
The repair is about $600 to fix this but I know how to replace ribon cable and boards and learning that it is a simple part swap, I looked on line and found you can buy the parts.
Two places the sell the parts are www.partstore.com but some of their info is out of date as Sony changed the part numbers but they told me to contact sony and told me to go to their site.
The other site is https://servicesplus.us.sony.biz where I was able to buy the replacement parts for the PD-170 for all of the electronics in the handle for $250 with next business day shipping.
They have blue prints of all the parts so it is pretty much looking at a shop manual.
What I have to fix is a pretty simple fix with only 15 or so screews to remove the handle and boards inside but to have the camera back up and running in 2 days vs 4 months when I sent my VX2100 into MACK for the same problem. Um Yeah...
But if this were the tape heads, um yeah, I would still send that in. I will make sure I goop the hell out of the handle now to prevent any more water getting in! After looking at the top part of the handle, there is NO moisture protection around the record and zoom buttons. Even a lite rain would get into the handle. As a safe guard you may want to put some kind of clear packing tape over the top just to seal it up.
My PD-170 started flaking out during Tropical Storm Alberto and I thought I fried another camera. Turns out their is a slight defect in the Sony VX Cameras as well as the PD camera where the battery unit is in the handle for the memory and if condinsation or moisture get's in there it can really mess it up.
The repair is about $600 to fix this but I know how to replace ribon cable and boards and learning that it is a simple part swap, I looked on line and found you can buy the parts.
Two places the sell the parts are www.partstore.com but some of their info is out of date as Sony changed the part numbers but they told me to contact sony and told me to go to their site.
The other site is https://servicesplus.us.sony.biz where I was able to buy the replacement parts for the PD-170 for all of the electronics in the handle for $250 with next business day shipping.
They have blue prints of all the parts so it is pretty much looking at a shop manual.
What I have to fix is a pretty simple fix with only 15 or so screews to remove the handle and boards inside but to have the camera back up and running in 2 days vs 4 months when I sent my VX2100 into MACK for the same problem. Um Yeah...
But if this were the tape heads, um yeah, I would still send that in. I will make sure I goop the hell out of the handle now to prevent any more water getting in! After looking at the top part of the handle, there is NO moisture protection around the record and zoom buttons. Even a lite rain would get into the handle. As a safe guard you may want to put some kind of clear packing tape over the top just to seal it up.
