After weeks of rain and clouds we finally get a clear night. I image remotely, tonight I powered everything up, opened Maxim, and I can't connect to my ST-8300M, Maxim says Error opening camera 1 could not initialize CCD camera (27). I tried power cycling the camera, with the same result. When the camera powers up I hear the usual sound that windows makes when plugging in a USB device, but a warning message comes up saying USB device not recognized. Nothing has changed that I know of on the PC other than maybe some windows updates, the camera was working fine last time I used it. Running windows 7 64bit pro. I've attached some screenshots of the errors and my current drivers. A friend of mine who lives onsite is going to look at the cables soon but not sure when. Any other ideas??
Well I have an update. My friend was able to move the usb cable to another PC, the camera connected just fine on that pc and was able to take images. We moved the usb cable back to the original PC and it started working. Maybe it was just a bad connection at the USB??
It seems the problem is 100% fixed after all, I'm wondering if the USB plug on the camera is going bad. After replacing the suspected bad USB cable the camera worked fine, then started having the problem again. After re-seating the USB cable at the camera it started working again. Can the USB jack on the camera be replaced without major expense? This has happened twice so far tonight, everything will be working fine, then Maxim locks up, and device manager shows the camera with no firmware. Then adjusting the cable at the plug it will start to work. Could there be anything else that can cause this? I'm pretty confident it is a bad connection at the USB plug on the camera.
I thought about trying that. After 3 random failures last night we stuck a small thin piece of cardboard in the plug as a shim for a tighter fit, I imaged the rest of the night with no problems.
Josh, Try pushing or bending the tabs inside the USB connector inward, towards the center, using a thin bladed screwdriver or tweezer or anything thin you can get behind them(I've used the tip of my Exacto blade). They're located at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions inside the connector. This can help tighten up the connection. Call me at work tomorrow if you want to talk about it. -Bill
Thanks Bill, I'll give that a try. If it becomes necessary, is it possible to replace the USB socket?
Josh, Yes, although it's fairly labor intensive. The circuit board has to come out of the chassis which means the whole camera has to be taken apart (and put back together, cleaned and tested). It isn't so much a difficult job, it just takes a while. -Bill
