Pentax istD* problem

gibo_ie

Hi All,
I have a bit of a problem with my Pentax istD* SLR. The battery indicator just lights up (as empty) when turned on and nothing else happens. tried it with different batteries too and same issue - tried batteries in other things and they work fine and show as quite full.
Any ideas what may be up? I haven't used it in a few months either and batteries were left out of it.
thanks in advance.
M

Kintarō Hattori

Have you tried both normal alkaline batteries such as Duracell and rechargeable batteries? I ask as the K100D Super I used to use suffers from something of a known battery problem. I used mine for about 18 months and everything was hunky dory- I was using 2700mAh batteries. One day (on a walk around town with Xia) the camera kept telling me that the batteries were dead even though I knew they were fully charged.

On doing some investigating on the net it seems that the camera can suddenly start having issues with rechargeable batteries. As they are only 1.2v it thinks they are empty. Regular batteries work fine but of course (1.5v) but they don't last very long. I believe the problem is something to do with the battery contacts. I cleaned them but it didn't make any difference.

I suspect you could be having a similar problem. Have you googled the camera model followed by 'battery problem'. It seems to be an issue for some Pentax users with a camera that takes AA batteries and there isn't a fix for the problem as far as I'm aware.

AnCatDubh

Haven't come across it myself but have heard of it. A suggestion i've heard spoken about is the internal battery may be giving trouble and if its old, it may be in need of replacement. Others talk of the Sanyo eneloops being very successful in theirs.

Hope it gets sorted. The *ist D are such nice cameras.

Kintarō Hattori

Hmnn interesting AnCatDubh. I must give this a try on the K100D Super when I get home today.

gibo_ie

thanks guys,
I had thought about the internal battery when looking through the user manual, but it shows it as being under a coin screw at the base of the camera but alas no such screw exists!
I will try some higher power batteries tonight and see how it goes.
Cheers.

AnCatDubh

That's odd about the internal battery - try picking up a service manual for one - maybe online to see if it tells you where to remove a screw or two if needed to replace that battery. Apparently the expected life of them is about 5 years which ties in with the *ist D's age-ish (kinda), so it probably needs one anyway.

Here's a *ist DL thread which is a slightly later version of the same camera. The common consensus there are for trying the Sanyo eneloops. About €10 for 4 on eBay at the moment.

Good luck with it.

gibo_ie

thanks for all the help. Changing to Duracell Ultra batteries and it works like a dream.
Cheers all.